SEARCH: Author Spotlight, Brian and Patricia Dake

Author Spotlight, Brian and Patricia Dake.

Name: Brian & Patricia Dake

Location: Napa Valley, California

You are both listed on the articles. Are you a team? How does that work?
Patricia and I write these recipe articles as a team. I usually have 5 to 10 recipes in development and pitch to Search Magazine based on their require-ments. Issue theme and the time of year influence our recipe choice.

I do the kitchen testing and rough draft of the reci-pe. Patricia does taste testing and offers feedback.

I often collect fun facts about the recipes, equip-ment and/or ingredients. Patricia writes the intro-duction and copyedits the recipe. Four times a year, we transform our home kitchen into a photo studio… To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: City Spolight, Toronto

City Spolight, Toronto by Tim Reynolds.

A vibrant city of 2.7 million people, Toronto, Ontario sits on the north shore of Lake Ontario, approximately eighty miles from Niagara Falls and the US border.

One of the most cosmopolitan and multicultural cities in the world, Toronto has over two hundred distinct ethnic origins. While English is the primary language of most Torontonians, over 160 languages are spoken there.

From the Royal Ontario Museum to the Ontario Science Centre (both places I hung out at in my misspent youth) Toronto is full of museums and galleries large and small. Culturally, it’s home to dozens of ballet and dance companies, a half-dozen opera companies, symphonies, and world class theaters… To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: Big Appliances Fight for Your Counter Space

Big Appliances Fight for Your Counter Space by Heather Roulo.

Every industry has its advancements. Pets, babies, and cooking are among those for which people will endlessly come up with new ideas.
Cooking combines both necessity and hobby. When you’re looking to make something delicious, convenience and speed become a priority. Check out various cooking options to make your life easier but remember you only have so much counter and storage space in your kitchen.

Rice Cooker

A rice cooker doesn’t sound like a necessity at first, but the ease of adding rice, salt, and water, closing the lid, and letting it cook to fluffy or sticky perfection can’t be overstated. Rice is such a common staple, figure out how frequently you have it and accept that the rice cooker is meant to be in most people’s lives. Branch out into new types of rice. Most rice cookers can also steam vegetables. Some can do even more… To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: DIY Grab it Easier

DIY Grab it Easier by Larriane Barnard.

It’s almost time to dig seldom used pots and pans, specialty baking dishes, and decorating kits out of the back cor-ners of your cabinets.

If you’ve got arthritis, COPD, bad knees, or you’re just getting old, you know how hard it is to reach into the bottom cabinets, especially the dead corners where turkey roasting pans live. If you’re on a budget, you’ve likely never indulged in a remodel to install fancy, pull-out drawers or slide-out shelves.

Here’s an inexpensive and quick way to keep you off your knees and your head out of the cabinets. Find a measuring tape. Measure the width of the cabinet opening, inside edge to inside edge, and sub-tract an inch for clearance. Measure the height and depth. Write those measurements down, maybe draw a diagram…

To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: Autism, Food For Thought

Autism, Food For Thought by Lillian Csernica.

Why people give advice:
They need emotional validation, which means helping someone feel heard and understood. On the positive end of this spectrum we find the people who really do just want to help. They feel anxious when they see our kids struggling. On the negative end dwell people determined to control everyone and everything around them. Susan Saint-Welch, LMFT, explains why these people need so much control. “Sometimes they just wear ‘good people’ down. They are not bad people usually. They have learned or believe that the only way to get what they want is to ‘corner’ someone and pressure them to do what they want. Sometimes they will adopt another tactic and become emotionally upset, there-by making you feel guilty and responsible for their upset feelings. However, no one is ever ‘responsible’ for how someone else feels. How we feel is our own response.” To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: Reflecting and Replanning

Reflecting & Replanning by Suzanne Madron.

As the growing season comes to a close, it’s time to think of garden cleanup and prepping for next year. In my case, it means reevaluating my garden layout and planting scheme.

Since I wasn’t quite sure where the plants from the old garden ended up after the garden overhaul, I was hesitant to pull anything that might be a resurrection of something I had already established in the old plot. Add in delayed shipping times from plant sellers and it took a bit longer to get everything up and running. Once everything was planted and took hold, however, it all took off. The taller-than-me jimson weed is a perfect example of both why it’s good to pull weeds and why next year I won’t have a ‘let’s see what this is’ attitude. The volunteer plants, such as the flower-of-an-hour, garlic, mustard, and single corn stalk have overtaken some are-as while other areas are now bare at the end of the season…

To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: Nutrition and Fitness

Nutrition and Fitness by Heather Roulo.

Fitness doesn’t begin and end at the gym. Most of what composes our body really happens when we eat.

The Covid-quarantine forced people out of gyms and into their kitchens. Sit down restaurants be-came take-out, whether we wanted it to or not. Studies showed that without buses to catch and office buildings to walk between in the course of daily life, people were walking roughly 1,000 steps less per day in March.

With our normal routines broken, we should consider this an opportunity to examine the nutrition and calories of the food making its way into our bodies. Without group parties, travel, and off-site events, we’re more in control than ever before…

To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: Hangi

Hangi by Michele Roger.

A Hangi is a traditional, Maori way of cooking food from New Zealand. It’s also become a twenty-year tradition at my house with up to 350 people from all over the world in attendance.

Typically, one only experiences a Hangi when in New Zealand. But my husband and his friends have been hosting one in Detroit, creating a “home away from home” for ex-pats and Kiwis abroad through-out the United States and Canada…

To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: Holiday Discomfort Foods

Holiday Discomfort Foods by Tim Reynolds.

Gather ye ’round and hear the tale of the Holiday Discomfort Foods. You ask what, pray tell, are discomfort foods? Well, they look much like the traditional holiday foods of a family with British and Scottish decent, but rather than comforting a soul over the holidays, they cause discomfort.

Let’s start with the very Canadian butter tarts. They’re wonderfully sweet, gooey, and chewy, but I like mine with…raisins. Yes, raisins, but there are people who are so discomfited by the mere idea of raisins in butter tarts that they get flustered and an-gry and refuse to be in the same room with me, which is fine because that leaves more tarts for me…

To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.

SEARCH: Cooking with the Kids

Cooking with the Kids by Kay Tracy.

My stepchildren and I started cooking together when they were 3 and 5. Early lessons included cutting hot dogs with a safe butter knife, making Pylsur Pasta, stirring sauces, and baking cookies.

Along the way, they learned to stir without a splash and how to crack eggs without adding shells.

There are many reasons to cook with your children. Most importantly, it allows you to bond in time spent together and provides them a sense of accomplishment from making something and being able to eat it. It’s an opportunity to teach hygiene, like washing hands properly and cleaning up after-ward. You can also sneak in math when they measure, double, or halve a recipe.

They’ll learn even if they don’t know it. Drop-ping pasta into the boiling water from too high is not a good idea but wearing an apron and long sleeves is. Tool use, from cutting fruit or vegetables to frosting a cake, helps with hand-eye coordination. Decorating cookies at Christmas is a fun way to engage the children, even if they lick frosting off their fingers….

To read more, click on the Winter Issue here.