Gooey-Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies was my gateway into Marissa Rothkopf’s The Secret Life of Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe is in the Soft and Lush section which best describes the qualities I adore. The chestnut-coloured fingerprints on my notes after eating one from the cooling rack were a testament to its perfection. I use decadent in the dated note scribbled below the recipe.
 
Is there a more universally beloved subject to land as a first cookbook assignment? “It’s the golden retriever of the food world,” says Rothkopf. In most kitchens across North America there’s at least one recipe on file, maybe handed down between generations. This cookbook makes it clear there are 62 reasons you need more. 
 
I also made the Tahini Brekkies—a variation which were even better three or four days out and not too sweet with my mid-morning second coffee. The recipe for Ginger and Rye Chocolate Chip Cookies is open on my kitchen table in the ready-to-be-made position. This 007 sexy shot of the Bailey’s Irish Cream Chocolate Chunk Cookie by photographer Amy Roth is sure to leave you thirsty.
 
“When I was little, we used to get Burry’s cookies, factory-made in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and I would eat them methodically,” says Rothkopf, “Starting with the cookie and saving the pile of chocolate chips to eat last.” Being a chocolate chip weirdo is the best credentials for writing this book. 
 
Rose Levy Berenbaum baptizes Rothkopf in the forward as, “A bright new voice in baking.” Why is that blurb not emblazoned on the front cover? It stopped me in my tracks when I read it. There’s one degree of separation between Rothkopf and the legendary American baker Maida Heatter, who wrote the foreword for Berenbaum’s first book, The Cake Bible. That is major baking legacy and credentials. 
 
The recipes and results are not the only reward of The Secret Life of Chocolate Chips Cookies. In size and price it’s made for the times, and for gift giving. “Chocolate chip is the most popular cookie during the Christmas season,” says Rothkopf. You’ll be glad you bought yourself and someone on your list a copy when deep baking season hits in mid-to-late winter and a homemade cookie is the only thing saving you on a grey, cold day. 

***
 
This is my official declaration of unbridled bias. Marissa Rothkopf sat down beside me at The Food Writers’ Workshop in Brooklyn in 2018. We ate lunch together that day and discovered we shared a wry sense of humour and laughed easily at the absurdities of food writing in a rapidly shrinking market. You can find Marissa on her Substack and podcast, The Secret Life of Cookies, where she shares recipes and talks with guests like Wajahat Ali, E. Jean Carroll, and Mary Trump.
 
***
 
Derrick Gee and Rosalia on human creation. If you have not heard Berghain, you want to catch up.
 
Yes it does.
 
***
 
The music of this week here. Join KEXP if you can.  

I wanted Kin as soon as I saw it for no other reason than the artful cover that looks like a coloured construction paper rendering of a bird, head curled down to catch a golden egg. The image is iconic — an endless circle.  Like a gift inside the cover, Marie Mitchell writes about it on the first page:
 
“The Sankofa bird on the cover of this book is a symbol from Ghana, one that I have been drawn to for many years. Its beak is either carrying or reaching for an egg, its feet face forward while its head looks back, advising us to remember the lessons of the past as we journey on into the new world of the future—a practice I try to honor, and the spirit of Kin.”
 
Emma Hall’s images wrap Mitchell’s words in the essays inside. They read like a higher love. “Here in Grenada…I’ve been able to find pockets of me that I thought were gone,” writes Mitchell. 
 
The books I love don’t have cooks on their cover. I also don’t need to see a food photo. I get that personality/celebrity and a gorgeous, finished dish are important to marketing and they sell lots of cookbooks, which is always and forever real good. I prefer a non-literal cover. Cooking engages my imagination, and I like to enter the kitchen that way.  
 
I can see through Kin to other cookbooks, like the ones in the pile below. They have a sparkling vision and express freedom and fun and personality and artful thinking. I imagine serious discussions with publishers. This kind of cover is easier to get in Europe than in North America. 
 
I had the same feeling the first time I saw Homa Dashtaki’s Yogurt and Whey. When I wrote about that book for the Washington Post I interviewed the Creative Director Sarah Cave. I wanted to talk to her as much as Homa. It was a nice conversation about book design. "We wanted a graphic abstract to look like pools of spilled cream in a color reminiscent of poured plaster,” she said. A big factor in my attraction are cooks and writers who work with creative teams. There is trust and kinship in the cookbooks DNA.  
 
Testing a cookbook calls for some cooking. Soon I will disappear into the kitchen and make Mitchell’s recipes mine. Then when I enjoy dinner I will think nice thoughts of her. 
 
This is Marie Mitchell. And here is a terrific piece of writing on Kin. 

***
 
One thing that we could do that would change life for all island and coastal people is to cap our use of fossil fuel. It is that simple. Filling up all our machines with gas and oil is directly tied to the severity of storms like Melissa (I do like the idea of naming storms after companies like British Petroleum). Island and coastal nations all over the globe are on the front line of the climate crisis. Fossil fuel and global travel corporations need to step up and fund rebuilding as an act of reparation. I hope we’ve reached the point where environmental architecture and design will protect them from future and certain catastrophe. The foundation of rebuilding must rest on the principle that beach access is a citizen’s right. This Al Jazeera documentary had a big impact on me when I heard it a year ago. 
 
Home for millions are places where we go to “get away.” This is the reality we need to think about when traveling. How does our being there do good? Boarding a plane is not a gateway to taking. If you want to help, there are organizations represented in the video link above, and World Central Kitchen is in Jamaica. Let’s come together. Send cash and nothing else, please. 
 
***
 
Two legends. 

Chinese LLMs have been scraping my website. The country appeared in my analytics three weeks ago for the first time in four years and they sped up to number two spot in ranking. It’s made me think of the writing I do here as a weekly treat for a Chinese machine — every seven days something new for them to gobble. I don’t know how many of you know that the internet has turned into the underbelly of Vegas. It’s weird to think my work can be taken and I also know that most of creation is temporary.

I’m talking to my hosting and website companies. The security solutions cost big money (and are built for large brands). I’ve been trying to sort out if the same thing is happening on big blogging platforms — or have they made a back room deal with American AI. The class action lawsuits in this sphere will grow and I hope they are painful for the takers.

It’s only discouraging if I let it be that way. Nothing will stop me from creating. 
 
***
 
I watched this Fifth Estate investigation on an addiction treatment centre and I could not shake it — there was no plan to write this. There are several shocking moments, but the allegations that they were taking clients who were detoxing with no medical staff on hand should be criminal. “Attempting a cold-turkey or at-home detox from alcohol, opioids, or benzodiazepines can be dangerous and even life-threatening.” It demonstrates a lack of care that makes me long for a landmark ruling with a penalty high enough to send shockwaves through Canadian recovery and treatment providers, who are not responding to repeat wake-up calls. 
 
I have sat with a few women in emergency rooms waiting to be seen on the first stop to detox. I have dropped essential items off for friends during their three days stay. I’ve spoken in several women’s detox centres, and have attended meetings in treatment facilities. As a participant, a complete neophyte, I know that the first three days of recovery are tenuous. Getting clean is hard. Have you seen someone in an alcohol-induced seizure? Do you know how many alcoholics die choking? Having no medical staff on site because the feds and the province don’t monitor it makes my blood boil. The allegations of misrepresentation by this facility are breathtaking. What is clear from the investigation is that it is the wild west out there, and it’s not limited to one facility or British Columbia.

I have been a long time sober, and you can’t imagine the work I’ve have done to get well enough to write this. And there is still more for me to do. I worry any time I hear a newly recovered alcoholic/addict express interest in working in recovery — less than one percent will be suited to it and some will never get certified. Substance abuse recovery is not meant to become a whole life. Only a precious few can handle it (it says that right in the blue book). 
 
As an act of service, this is my first pitch for legislation and mandatory certification for all substance abuse treatment centres, administrators, sobriety coaches, and interventionists in Canada. You can tell watching this there will be pushback. Only professionals insist on professional conditions. 

***
 
This story on Punjabi Disco from the BBC is all kinds of fantastic — forty minutes of wholesome fun. Hearing this man talk of having his dreams come true while playing music with his mother is delicious.
 
The salmon were running up the Humber this week. I try to imagine what the run would have looked like over millennia.
 
I took the header image in an alley in Parkdale. Do you know the name of the artist? I was out on a Stroll with Shawn Micallef — master of words and walking — a Toronto urban advocate and flaneur.
 
***
 
Some of the sounds of the last seven days. 

First a word from someone's sponsor:

***
 
I’m judging emerging writers for the Irish Food Writing Awards and in reviewing the stories I missed something that a journalist would not have — some of the who, what, where, when, and why of the stories. I felt like an amateur momentarily, which I’ve already established I still am. I make mistakes and will make more guaranteed. The awards are in the competent hands of Suzanne Campbell, a woman I admire for her service to the Irish food writing community.
 
The path to the page for every writer is unique. I trained in creative writing, not journalism. Most of the people in my cohort at the Humber School for Writers were in the early stages of creating novels. I was not taught facts as much as story. I’m not suggesting journalists don’t write story, because I admire so many of them for how they do it. But my first preference is for the shape and spirit — the personality — of the writing. Finding and using your voice is a vital process. It scared the shit out of me when I was emerging at fifty. My writing mentor repeatedly told me not to be afraid of what I had to say. It takes time to find the aspect of a story that makes me feel in some way, and then try and convey that to a reader.

In grading or judging I review and ideate in cursive, and in the first read I search for a sentence I like, where I can see a glimpse of the person dropping letters on the page.  I make squares around them in purple highlighter. I do it everywhere I read when I get awestruck by the way words come together. Then I went back to the beginning to discern if basic questions are answered, and if the thinking reflects research.
 
The feeling of emerging should be a part of every new substantive project for anything involving craft.  Some call it beginner’s mind. I did a traditional French cooking apprenticeship, and a foundation principle is that you never arrive. There is always more to learn. Mastery is a serious and life-long pursuit. It was also ingrained in me that only rare women are masters, that most women arrive a polite few years after their male peers or never, so there’s that, too.
 
An emerging writer not too long ago might have had more exposure to editors. On most blogs — business and personal — there is no one with the metaphoric “red pencil.” I was able to hire people right out of school to edit my work, and considered it a good investment. Writing at this point is a business still largely without mentorship. Only a very few find good guidance. There are gatekeepers who operate like there’s not enough and turn everyone, including junior colleagues who are hardly competition, into threats. One of them told me when I was in school to give it up because there wasn’t enough work in Canada. Those were facts from a journalist. What they didn’t know is how many times as a woman I’d faced some version of you-don’t-belong working in restaurant kitchens. It taught me to not put a lot of weight in the opinions of others, except for those of people I trust. 
 
Every project and every piece has a tone, usually dictated by the subject. The trick is to express the experience of another, and let it carry your shadow. It’s taken time to find my voice, and I have some way to go.
 
The reason why “today,” my “blog," is public is to demonstrate process. That is the priceless factor for me. I like it all from the first draft to fresh-off-the-press — from the messy kitchen to dinner on the table. I like the thud of chopping onions, the sizzle of butter in a black pan, and the clink of cutlery coming to rest on a plate. 

There are tender green days when the learning curve is steep. I have been laid low a few times by hard lessons. You need a backbone. Are there writers who have never had that happen, whose success has tumbled over to more success and a million followers? Mythically, yes. 
 
I admire the writers stepping up for this award. You have to be brave from the start and put yourself out in whatever way feels good and right. And knowing how many stunning stories exist without a governing bodies stamp of approval will keep you humble. So will the understanding that hierarchical approval is a patriarchal construct and fades fast, like lipstick and duck fat. The magic is staying with a trade for long enough to find your voice and your people.
 
That grade two photo currently hanging out on my desk is an image of me as an emerging writer. :)

​***
 
Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing is the book about process I most relate to. It is full of so many practical lessons from his years of teaching creative writing at American universities. To me, it reads like an apprenticeship. For a while, and under its influence, I practiced writing four- and five-word sentences. It’s brilliant for working on cadence, but string too many of them together and it’s irritating to read. A good human told me to dial it down over an ice cream cone — my preferred style of editorial meeting.
 
 
“How could the man who wrote “in a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” have failed to tell the truth about his own wife?”
 
Why I Write, by George Orwell found me this week. He captured a period in history and wrote about power in an original manner that speaks to us vividly right now. I’m massively late to the fact that Eileen O’Shaughnessy, his first wife, had a big hand in the creation of Animal Farm and 1984, and received no credit. Orwell was a standard-bearer socialist twat.
  
***
 
Prince is everything Alicia Key says about him off the top — he was open as a creator. When it was released, I played 10cc a lot.

​Pumpkin pie is a close second to cherry as the best in my books, but I’m not one to turn down any flavour when it’s homemade. I adore pumpkin for breakfast the next day with a heap of soft and sweet whipped cream. 

Making the filling from scratch is easy, but the flesh of the squash must be dense and meaty. I went looking for a Hubbard squash but came up short so I bought a big buttercup and roasted it with butter and citrus rind. I made the yeasted puff pastry from Chez Panisse Cooking. That recipe is so impossibly good, it’s the place where my hardcover binding has split. 

A friend sent me a text Saturday morning saying they love seeing my social media posts about baking nice things for myself. I like baking for others too, but I never let living alone get in the way of making a good meal or dessert. I’ll rattle all the pots just for me. 

May the knees of good people be under your table this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving.

​***
 
This is the season of shrub roses, asters, and dahlias. I always stop and smell the roses. 
 
Hold on to each other.  
 
***
 
I wore the grooves off the first song on our home stereo. I found a clip of Minnie Riperton attached to a post on social media. The floral theme fit this week.

The closest I got to L’Oustau de Baumanière was peering through the dining room windows when it was closed for the season. The French elegance was seductive. If I had a time machine I’d go back and dine. I was visiting the medieval Provençal town of Les Baux. There was a scattering of tourists. It was winter in Canada and locally it was Mistral season. In March, and under the winds surreal influence, the Luberon was dark, wild, and moody.  

Research has helped me replace old ideas with new opinions about some of history’s great French chefs. It’s a good feeling to look out over four decades and see it as a mature woman. I’m grateful that one of the lessons from a traditional French apprenticeship was to play the long game. The subject is alive again for me.

I have fallen for some of those figures but it’s early days and there’s more to learn. Idealizing humans comes with problems. I read about Raymond Thuilier in chef school in 1990. He was an understated and elegant chef. I didn’t think much more of him. But I’ve discovered a staunch individual, whose life was culture manifest. He had a fierce Provençal backbone and was from a time before attention-seeking. 

Someone please get me a t-shirt with that image of him in his bachelor-button blue manteau de peintre. 

***
 
Part of the pleasure of walking is noticing the buckwheat honey-coloured ribbon of fall debris between the grass and asphalt or the disco-silver paint peeling on a garage door in an east end alley.

Kate McKinnon on Hot Ones. 
 
***
 
His vocals are distinct and playful. Incroyable.

Arborists are one notch above master carpenters in my book, only because some of them swing from trees while they work. There were at least ten of them here last week cutting down an Elm hanging precariously over a balcony out back. In numbers and duties they reminded me of the efficiency of a French kitchen brigade, with ranks running from sweepers to climbers. I’m sure a few of the ground crew were apprentices or interns. The scent from the chipper out front was a parting gift. I wanted a big bowl for my desk but was too shy to ask. The fragrance triggers something primal. Think of the smell of a hot cedar sauna.
 
The Elm was not in a location to accommodate a truck and bucket, and there were dead sections in the top of the trunk. All factors that make the climbers job in the canopy with a chainsaw interesting. I watched one of them recover beside his truck after, drinking water and catching his breath. It is physical exertion, and I went looking for the laws governing safety.
 
Danger is part of the attraction to the job. A charismatic Irish man I once knew turned his career to the study of trees. I thought of it as a sign of well-being — planting his life in sanity. Also, his black humour, which made me belly laugh. 
 
Some of the gnarled, velvety roots were poking out of the crumbling clay bank. They left a tall stump to ensure it did not topple over and accelerate erosion. Tree roots are structural stability for riverbanks and there are laws governing removal. Living next to significant parkland with an astonishing diversity of trees teaches you about changes in the environment and the thoughtful conservation response. 
 
Through the trees beyond it are glimpses of the Humber Marsh — a breathtaking micro-environment. You can’t imagine how many gorgeous photos I have of it. My heart melts all the time. 
 
Thank you WMD Tree Services for answering my questions. You’re a top-notch crew. 

​***
 
The rusks above have been on heavy rotation in my kitchen lately. I’m attending a community building event this week and am bringing it as one of the snacks. I think of it as a fresh variation on Serbian Ajvar:  chop and combine the last of the summer tomatoes, sour dill pickles, roasted yellow pepper, white onion, celery, celery salt, sugar, pickle brine, apple cider vinegar, and olive oil. Let it sit for a couple of hours at room temperature to get picklelicious. I put it on crisp Greek sesame rusks with a palette knife of labneh and garnish with dill flowers. 
 
This American Masters documentary on Willy Nelson is stunning and nourishing. His voice and guitar picking sound like honey. A grade schoolteacher praised his poetry.
 
***
 
These two songs came into my playlist in this order and fit together. 'Cause the breeze don't blow 'cause you want it.” 

I’ve done what I can to protect its location. It’s in the process of becoming one with the landscape. Where a car is last parked has meaning. 
 
I rounded a corner on a long walk one day and there it was in the wild. I check on it occasionally, looking for something new to notice. 
 
“The Sunday car,” writes dannysdailys on the model page on the Cadillac Forum. 
 
“You are in no hurry,” adds Faded Crest, “This behemoth was tailor made…for a single man…It epitomizes pure unadulterated, sexy, personal extravagance.” It’s also a nice fit for a single lady.
 
The colour is vanilla soft serve. It’s either Cotillon or Cameo White according to Cadillac paint names. I’d call this Biarritz, Butter. 
 
I can see Greg Allman behind the wheel. Bankers in my Lake Huron hometown bought them in black with red leather interior. It was DeNiro’s ride in Casino, albeit a later model.
 
A 1978 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz, according to an amateur. Details like the silver swoosh running along a rise in the hood toward the logo and the spoked rims are clues. It’s for long drives and smoking, with tufted marshmallow cushions and a silver ash tray and lighter at every seat. Half windows in the back give the interior a lush privacy. The antenna disappears into the body — a sign of electronics. 
 
It’s 20 feet plus in length and most of it is out front. Driving it on the Boulevard du Général de Gaulle — the turquoise Mediterranean out the window — in its namesake town would be meta.  
 
The story of the owner could go off in as many directions as the spokes on the rims. 
 
I’m expecting one day to round the corner and find its imprint on the pavement.  

***
 
Whipped cream in baba — another paint colour name.  
 
Happiness is a Friday night meander that ends at Serano Bakery. It is real busy straight through close. The service is European — brisk and professional. The goddess of hospitality introduced me to it just this year. Twenty-five years in Toronto and still learning.
 
***
 
You can bet this song played in that car. The music is another custom detail. Cadillac’s were first built in Detroit, the city where the Commodores recorded for Motown. I was fourteen when Easy was released in 1977, and whenever I hear the piano opening I feel that age again. Both versions are good. You pick. 

A former colleague sent me a text last week saying that Michael Ondaatje’s poem, Notes For The Legend of Salad Woman could be written about me. The sentiment was soft and green and healing. 
 
Since my wife was born
she must have eaten
the equivalent of two-thirds
of the original garden of Eden.
Not the dripping lush fruit
or the meat in the ribs of animals
but the green salad gardens of that place.[1]
 
My mother understood the light nature of the ingredients in what Escoffier categorizes as a simple salad. There was lots of room for tossing in her buttery rosewood bowl. Lesson One:  Do not crowd the ingredients. I loved her Caesar salad from when I was little — it’s a race-to-the-table memory. 
 
As a young cook, I worked in a station called larder — the British version of the French garde manger. I made sausages and terrines, pickled and dried vegetables, and managed the cheese under supervision. I turned local tender greens into towering structures to test the steady hands of runners. 
 
Salad requires the same finesse as an omelette. It’s a good first exam for a new cook — it can be massacred by a lad who shellacs it with dressing and tosses it like a Thai masseuse, so it arrives at the table on life support. 
 
The contents of your crisper interests me. I can step into most kitchens and make something original or classic. I’ve made fantastic salads for staff meal. That’s what inspired the text message.
 
There’s a reel circulating on social media of clips of Werner Herzog saying read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read. *laughing* Think of me saying salad, salad, salad, salad, salad, salad, salad. 
 

[1] Ondaatje, Michael. “Rat Jelly.” (Toronto:  Coach House Press, 1973). p. 18. https://archive.org/details/ratjelly0000onda_h9v3/mode/2up

***
 
One of my standard vinaigrettes is made with apple cider vinegar, a hint of garlic and  Dijon mustard, unpasteurized honey, salt and MSG, and avocado oil. It’s good with fruit, cheese, or nut garnishes. Also, squash and farro. The best apple cider vinegar in Ontario comes from Niagara Vinegar Co. It smells like a bushel of picked fruit. I tossed the Ontario French beans, tomatoes, and corn above with it — what Escoffier calls a composed salad. 
 
A Japanese-inspired dressing in the small dish in the image on the left might call for a visit to a specialty grocery store for ingredients. No great hardship. Combine Goma sauce, Kewpie mayonnaise, rice wine vinegar, enough ginger to make it bright, one small clove of garlic, a few drops of sesame oil and shoyu and shio koji. I’ve made variations with lime zest and juice and imagine it would be delicious with Calamansi or Yuzu juice. Lesson Two:  A well-made dressing always wakes the palate up. 
 
Green Onion-Yogurt Dressing. 
 
***
 
There's always a day in September when my heart sinks over disappearing tastes and early sunsets. I still listen to this Leon Bridge’s album like it was released last week. It’s a perfect match with a low sun on a late afternoon walk. 

​The warm and fleeting feeling of love and gratitude spread through me when I stumbled on this video taken in 1949 from a boat in Toronto harbour. I was looking at the skyline through my grandfather’s eyes, and welled up. How many entries for Toronto are there in Harry’s blue logbook? I’m sure there were times at the end of a too long season when all he could see was another grain elevator. But he also would have arrived on a day when the waves glistened, and the sky was a hue between powder and azure blue. Looking at the city from a boat’s perspective has meaning for me. It’s a whole other world for people who work on the water. 
 
As chief engineer, Harry would not have been playing tourist on deck while docking. Or maybe he would with a good engine room crew. Later, smartly dressed and topped with a Ben Hogan or Fedora, he’d climb down the ladder and head off to meet us for a meal at Sai Woos or Shopsy’s on Spadina. 
 
Family was important to him, but the arrangements were unique and difficult. For the better part of every year he was a man beyond reach — a shadowy presence at home. In the early years communication was not easy. Mail boats would occasionally snug up against a laker to exchange letters and packages. He was home for six to eight weeks, and then gone. Harry missed an awful lot. Was he ever in the stands when my father played football for Notre Dame in Welland? 
 
I can still hear him holding back laughter — the living room on Lyons Avenue glowing with the late afternoon sun. The ice in his scotch clattering against the crystal as he neared the climax of a harrowing-comical Great Lakes tale. In a family of storytellers, Harry was high ranking.
 
The photo of my grandparents below was taken before they were married maybe on the S.S. Easton in the 1930s. Theo, my grandmother, is peeking out the door. There was a lot of that life that suited them as a couple, including time apart. When the kids were grown they would babysit boats during the winter break. I imagine Theo boarding a train in Welland, and hours later coming up the stairs at Central Station in Montreal where Harry was waiting. There’s a photo of them dressed for winter, taken on the street in that city, and they both look happy — enjoying time as a couple.
 
I loved being in the galley as a kid, but was forbidden to even think about working on the water. The threat was death and conveyed the potential for danger. 

​***
 
I miss the internet. It has basically gone. It’s been put through the Silicon Valley razzle-dazzle machine.
 
This interview with British nature writer, Robert Mcfarlane, was done in a spot I walk by several times a week. I’m aware of my proximity to a historic river and landscape that predates Canada by millennia. Stay and listen to the people who join him. What does it mean for a river to be ‘alive’?
 
***
 
This is one of those rare covers that may surpass the original in brilliance. Listen for the size and depth of the band behind him, and the piano refrain in the opening. It’s verging on orchestral. Joe Cocker's voice was an amazing instrument. Ricky Stainton on the keyboard stirs my inner teenager.