Ever since I began thinking more about the food I eat—and this includes reading books, watching films, following blogs, and lots of cooking and eating—I’ve been rather hung up on the idea of tradition. I find myself lamenting the fact that North America does not seem to have its own traditional cuisine (unless I count […]
Chutneys were for a long time a bit of a mystery to me. That is until I was given some by a friend and realized to my delight that just like ketchup, it goes well on top of pretty much everything. I feel like in some ways a chutney is a hybrid between ketchup and jam—it […]
While I’m not a fan of endlessly adding kitchen gadgets to our extremely small kitchen, there are the occasional ones that seem worth it. The spiralizer is one of those. After a friend lent us hers to help us dispatch with a few too many zucchinis we were hooked. I picked one up at Vincenzo’s […]
Recently I found out there was a new coffee roaster in town and I got pretty excited. Not because we didn’t have locally roasted coffee here in Kitchener-Waterloo, we do. Rather it was because I knew that Smile Tiger Coffee had strong ties to what is our favorite coffee shop in KW, Death Valley’s Little Brother. My […]
“Whatever highly honorable motives they may have—to save money or to enjoy themselves, for example—the greatest motivation for homebrewers is the opportunity to experiment and to produce beer in all the glorious varieties in which it manifests itself.” -Michael Jackson (this MJ, not the other) in the preface to The Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian […]
¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! On this May 5th I find myself reminiscing a bit… I spent almost three years of my life living in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. While living there my absolute favorite food was pupusas. They’re not hard to love, considering they are pretty much like the corn tortilla version of pizza (which I am rather […]
A few months ago I almost cut my finger off. Not the whole finger, just the tip, which is still an important part of my finger in my opinion! Fortunately I didn’t cut it off but it was a decent wound, with blood getting on the carrots… sorry, too graphic. Let’s see, what do I […]
In case you were wondering…. There are a few ways to stay up-to-date with The Local Kitchener. Here they are: One. Just check the site on a regular basis. This is probably not too reliable, but at least there’s no commitment! Two. Sign up for email updates. This means getting a monthly email with a […]
Occasionally we worry about how we are perceived. More specifically, we worry about how our son is perceived at school, and indirectly how that makes us look. I should really phrase this in the first person singular: I sometimes worry about this. Which is absurd. Nonetheless, it is a fear of mine. The fear of […]
The end of winter is a beautiful thing. Wait, no it’s actually not very beautiful. Spring is beautiful, but this end of winter seems to drag on a few too many weeks. While it’s dragging on there is no hope yet of new produce. There is no asparagus or rhubarb. The trees are still lacking […]