Peering down at two salmon filets the other night, I asked myself, what the heck was I going to do with these things? What was I in the mood for? Would I stick to my usual half dozen well-tested and adored salmon recipes, or go fishing (pardon the pun) for something new?

I headed over to the New York Times cooking site, an always reliable source for new recipes. Punch in the word “salmon” and you’ll get 529 results. Take your search to the larger helm of the internet and you’ll find recipes from sites like Delish, Food & Wine, Serious Eats, Martha Stewart, America’s Test Kitchen and so many more. I settled on an old favourite: Food52’s Roasted Salmon with Cheat’s Vietnamese Caramel Sauce , an easy recipe I love so much that I considered adapting it for my last cookbook. I didn’t, but boy am I envious of that simple recipe.

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Though I do pay for a subscription to the Times cooking site, that Vietnamese salmon recipe came to me for free, as do so many recipes I find these days on sites, the general internet world or, more and more often, Instagram. Comment “recipe” they say, and within seconds, the recipe is yours. It’s that simple. YouTube is also a goldmine of recipes, with the added bonus of visuals and technique. We are not at a loss for recipes in 2026.

Last week I bought a cookbook. It cost me $40 and as I handed over my credit card, I realized I hadn’t bought a cookbook in a while. But this book spoke to me because it was filled with recipes I knew I would make, from an author I knew I could trust to deliver on the delicious. I looked through that book and marked many pages, realizing this was cooking not based on my regular ingredient searches, but discovery cooking, seeing recipes I was tempted to try.

Those who want to tailor a recipe to their tastes or, increasingly, their food restrictions, can also use AI to concoct a recipe. I’ve tried it and I’m sad to say the results are impressive. What recipe AI is doing is scanning all of the internet’s recipes for you and coming up with a result based on years of hard work from vigilant food writers and recipe testers who travelled to places like Mexico to see whether garlic belonged in guacamole, and Goa to gauge the correct level of spice for a South Indian curry.

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All this to say, the search for recipes has never been simpler. And this has happened very recently, because I can remember a time when a good recipe was hard to come by, and because they were, they held real value. Food writers could make a living writing recipes, chefs held firm to their recipes, and people relied heavily on cookbooks to show them how to make everything from cinnamon buns to beef bourguignon.

As a young pastry chef working in Lyon, I recall sneaking in a pen and notebook to mark down recipes during my break. It was frowned upon, so I’d tell them I was taking notes so they wouldn’t have to repeat instructions. Truth is, I was jotting down quantities along with technique, working off recipes that were handwritten and kept in a book the chef scooped up every night and locked away in his office. I left that pastry shop with many good recipes that I used for years, though I’m still angry I didn’t manage to get more, especially their glaze for tarts, a grapefruit granité, and a flamingo-shaped tuile cookie I’ve never seen since.

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The next year I worked in France, where they were a little more open with recipe sharing, until we found out the chef had a copy the recipe book from the pastry shop Fauchon. At the time Fauchon was under the reign of Pierre Hermé, and everyone wanted those secret recipes. So for several nights, a few of the chefs slipped into the chef’s office, lifted the Fauchon recipe book and secretly made copies of all the recipes. These were chef’s recipes, which meant not only were the quantities enough for dozens of cakes, but the ingredients were listed without the techniques, which made the recipes difficult to master unless you’d worked at Fauchon. It was considered a real coup by the chefs who copied that book, and I myself used quite a few of them. But eventually they became dated, and those once precious recipes now languish in a dark corner of my cellar.

This obsession with finding new recipes never left me, and I can still recall a trip to Spain in 2019 where I tasted an olive oil cake unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I was on the trip with a recipe editor from Food & Wine magazine, and the two of us pinned down our hostess and begged her for the recipe. I took it down, trying to beat her to the punch, but I don’t think either of us got all of the details.

I also recall tasting the most sublime orange cake in Croatia. It was moist, light and so full-flavoured. When the chef gave me the recipe I was thrilled, only to discover back home that it was the same orange cake made famous by Claudia Roden, and by Nigella Lawson after her.

I recently asked a chef in Peru for her recipe for braised beef cheek but then soon realized, it wasn’t about the recipe so much as the quality beef she used. And another recipe for a pepper sauce from Mexico fell flat because the peppers available here cannot compare with the ones from Merida.

I could name so many instances where I jumped on a recipe, hoping I’d be the first to bring it into the world — often to no avail. I specifically recall a no-roll tart recipe taught to me by a friend of my sister’s, the French cooking teacher, Paule Caillet. Apparently this shell could be prepared in minutes, the whole thing made in a pot on the stove. I was suspicious, but it was original and delicious. I typed it up for the newspaper, and sadly, it ran on Sept 12, 2001. You might recognized the date as the day after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, and a day no one was searching the newspaper for a revolutionary pie dough recipe.

Eight years later that recipe went viral on David Lebovitz’s blog and Food52’s website. Timing can also affect how a recipe is received. And no doubt, David’s blog was a better fit for a Parisian pastry recipe than a Canadian newspaper.

So many of us food writers, I’m sure, have stories about doing anything short of selling our souls to nab an original recipe. Or better yet, create a recipe that goes viral, like the queen of viral recipes, Alison Roman. Recipe development also used to be a big deal, and I can still remember making enough money off creating two recipes for Jack Daniel’s whisky that I was able to buy a piano.

But I fear those days are over, and that the reality is we are not just swimming in recipes but drowning in them. Coming up with new recipes has become such a challenge that many of us are turning to old cookbooks for inspiration. I ran a recipe here for an orange cake I found in a vintage Jehane Benoît cookbook, and it turned out to be a real winner. I also ran a recipe here for Poulet à la Crème Joubine, which I adapted heavily from a 1963 edition of The New Good Housekeeping cookbook. And this week on her Substack, my friend Laura Calder looked back to an old Fannie Farmer cookbook to try a recipe for fish mousse, which indeed looks retro, but if it’s delicious, why not?

All this to say, recipes are now a dime a dozen, or actually even less. A good recipe is no longer hard to find, and I sense the days of discovery are coming to an end. And I still hold out hope that there are recipes to discover, yet what’s new in cooking is not so much about techniques or flavour combinations, but merely assembly, stronger taste sensations, and arguments about authenticity.

Maybe that's the real shift. It's not that recipes have lost their value, it's that we've stopped appreciating the hunt. I miss the version of myself who'd scribble a stolen recipe on a scrap of paper like it was contraband, who'd tear pages from old food magazines in dentist waiting rooms, who'd taste and analyze something again and again just to uncover its secret. Ask a chef for a recipe now, and chances are you'll get it before the bill arrives. Secrets, now, are frowned upon.

I don't think that's a tragedy exactly. But I do think the hunt mattered more than we gave it credit for, and I miss having to work to uncover a good recipe instead of having it appear in my in-box.

How do you feel about to abundance of recipes available today?

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As anyone who follows me on Instagram knows, I am about as anti-Trump as people get. Like many, I loathe the American president and his entourage, and I don’t understand anyone who would vote for him. His first term was bad enough, but in the second, he has not only jabbed at Canada with talk of us becoming America’s 51st state, but since 2025 has hit us with tariffs that have placed several of our industries, especially steel, aluminum, auto and lumber, in peril.

Canadians’ anger stems mainly from those tariffs, which have hit household finances and businesses hard. With over 80% of Canadians believing the tariffs have significantly affected the economy, it comes as little surprise that polling shows 55% of Canadians feel angry, with U.S. favourability at a record low. Frankly, I’m surprised that number isn’t higher.

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Most Americans, meanwhile, don’t actually support the tariffs, and many say they’re embarrassed by how Trump is treating their northern neighbour. Alas, he doesn’t appear to give a damn. When Canada turned elsewhere for business and signed a trade agreement with China, tensions escalated further, with threats of 100% tariffs.

The most recent major development came on July 1, when the deadline passed for the U.S., Canada and Mexico to decide whether to extend CUSMA, the trade deal that replaced NAFTA, for another 16 years. The Trump administration announced it would not renew the pact, saying it wanted to address the agreement’s shortcomings instead. We’re a long way from Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan exchanges loving glances over the Free Trade Agreement of 1988.

Any good news lately? Oh yes: this week came word that the Gordie Howe Bridge between Windsor and Detroit, finished seven weeks ago, will finally open. So hooray for that, I guess, despite the fact that the Americans will split revenues 50-50 with Canada, who paid for the bridge. Still, for Canadians, this treatment from one of the country’s closest and longest-standing allies feels like a betrayal, given the deep personal and economic ties between our two countries.

Speaking for myself, I have always loved the U.S.A. and count many Americans as friends. As a Canadian, I’ve been shaped by a country two hours from my front door. Just as Quebec fights to protect its language and culture surrounded by English speakers, Canada as a whole has struggled to differentiate itself from its neighbour to the south, whose culture is so pervasive that I can still recite the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, thanks to Schoolhouse Rock cartoons on Saturday mornings. For years I dreamed of living and working in the States, and I always loved travelling there, discovering not just the restaurants but the people, who might be annoying in Parisian restaurants but tend to be exceptionally friendly on their own turf.

But in Trump’s America, all of that has changed. Canadians are now more than a little pissed off at being treated as foes instead of friends by the country we long considered our compadre.

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That anger has shown up everywhere, and not just the usual Canadians vs. Bruins hockey games, but primarily through the sale consumer goods. Boycotting American products has been widespread and organized with shoppers favouring Canadian-made goods, restaurant owners swapping U.S. suppliers for Canadian or other, and an even broader “Buy Canadian” movement taking hold nationwide.

Cutting off travel to the U.S. has been another form of payback. Canadian travel south of the border dropped sharply, around 40% in February 2025 alone compared to the year before, with widespread cancellations of shopping trips, concerts and vacations leaving a real economic bite on U.S. border towns and tourist destinations. Some Canadians have gone further: I know several Quebecers who sold their U.S. vacation properties outright, redirecting that travel spending to Mexico and the Caribbean instead, destinations now drawing the snowbirds and families who'd normally head to Florida.

(Ironically, the travel boycott is fairly one-directional so far as Americans have been heading north into Canada in bigger numbers, with U.S. visits to Canada up sharply, likely helped by a strong U.S. dollar.)

Governments pushed back too. Ottawa slapped retaliatory tariffs on tens of billions of dollars’ worth of American goods, while various provinces quietly rewrote procurement policies to shut U.S. companies out where possible. Nova Scotia doubled tolls on the Cobequid Pass for U.S. commercial vehicles. Ontario cancelled a $100-million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink, with Premier Doug Ford declaring it dead even if the tariffs were eventually lifted. Then there was electricity: Ontario supplies power to about 1.5 million U.S. homes, and Ford floated cutting off Michigan, New York and Wisconsin entirely if tariffs went ahead.

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Friendly was not the name of the game.

For a country that has spent decades being almost pathologically polite to its neighbour, it’s a lot. We Canadians aren’t big on confrontation. But here we are, and for many of us, this defensive version of the relationship is feeling like the new normal.

Perhaps the most visible form of retaliation has been through alcohol. Save for Alberta and Saskatchewan, U.S. alcohol is still essentially absent from Canadian liquor store shelves. Given that the Ontario’s LCBO and Quebec’s SAQ are the two largest liquor boards in the world, that loss of business is significant: U.S. spirits sales in Canada dropped 66.3% between March and April 2025 alone, and the Wine Institute recorded a 78% drop in U.S. wine exports to Canada between 2024 and 2025, with Canada’s share of U.S. wine exports falling from 36% to just 12%, representing hundreds of millions in lost value and enough white Zinfandel to drown a herd of elephants.

Despite Trump saying the U.S. needs nothing from Canada, it’s clear they miss our love of a good Napa cab. Just this past week, California’s Democratic senator Adam Schiff pleaded with Canada to end the boycott of California wine, calling it devastating for winegrowers. In June he wrote to Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette, noting that Quebec consumers had long enjoyed access to American wine and that the ban cuts off a $434-million market, with damaging consequences for regional consumers, businesses and producers who have no say in national trade policy.

He wasn’t alone: a bipartisan group of 14 U.S. House members sent Fréchette a similar letter, and New York Republican Congresswoman Claudia Tenney announced she’d introduce the CANADA Act (Combating Attacks on our National Alcoholic Drinks by Allies), aimed at triggering a Section 301 trade investigation, arguing Canadian provinces cannot be allowed to hold American wineries, breweries and distilleries hostage. Nice try, Claudia, nice try. But even once American wine and spirits return, I’d guess it will take years — and a new President — for them to regain the market share they once enjoyed.

The boycott has clearly hurt U.S. sales, but the benefit to Canadian producers can’t be ignored. The LCBO saw Ontario wine sales jump 44%, one Ontario winery reported a 600% sales increase at the LCBO, and one distillery reported vodka sales up 100% and whisky up 300%. So if not “Bottoms Up,” it certainly has been “Elbows Up” on Canada’s side since the Trump administration began dismantling trade treaties and the back-and-forth began.

On a personal level, though, has the anger held, or has it started to fade?

It has been 16 months now since the Quebec liquor board pulled all U.S.-made alcohol from its shelves and website, and that’s still the case. American wines were never a big part of my household to begin with, so no great loss there, though I’ll admit to breaking down and buying a single bottle of bourbon at Duty Free on my way back from Mexico. My bad — though it was just one!

As for grocery shopping, many of us have been avoiding anything from south of the border. I’ve seen a few brands disappear from supermarket shelves, though fewer people seem to be scanning labels these days. As the anger ages, so does the fervour to “show ‘em,” and before you know it, you’re buying Driscoll’s raspberries because they’re $3 a carton. I tell myself it’s OK if I buy the ones from Mexico, but really… is it?

As for travel, I vowed to avoid the U.S. altogether, and for a long time I did. But sometimes life gets in the way. Last year I attended a Tourism Australia event in Malibu, California, and in May I went to New Orleans for the World’s 50 Best ceremony, which was a contractual obligation. And yesterday I returned from a trip to Vermont and New York State, prompted by a work situation but extended to make the trip worthwhile.

Sometimes, though, there’s no substitute for something you love, and for me that’s the New York City Ballet. I can find great restaurants in Montreal, but once a year in July, the best ballet in the world can be found at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in New York State, where the company has danced every summer since 1966. I started going with my mother in the late eighties and have made the pilgrimage most years since, including organizing a group trip in the summer of 2024.

Those trips came to a halt when Trump arrived, and I missed that annual pilgrimage more than I expected, which made me wonder: how effective are those personal protests? Would the awful orange tyrant really keep me from something I truly loved? Of course it’s the combined actions of many that make a difference. But could 48 hours in the U.S. be offset by my not drinking Tito’s vodka or eating Andy Boy romaine lettuce?

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When I posted photos from the trip on Instagram, the messages poured in. Some said they too missed going to the States; some said they’d already started going back; others said they’d never set foot in the U.S. as long as Trump is in power, often punctuated with the “vomit” emoji.

In Vermont, probably the least Trumpian state of them all, the wonderful manager of the restaurant I visited told me they were feeling the lack of Canadian tourists sharply, and that business was way down. It was obvious everywhere I went. From Burlington to Stowe, shopping streets were empty and restaurants half full. At the U.S. border crossing there were only two cars ahead of us, and coming home, there was no line at all on the Canadian side. As a friend of mine put it recently: “I’m trying to feel sorry for them, but I have a hard time getting past the 77 million who voted for him.” So true.

For a long time, what kept Canadians from a U.S. holiday was probably the exchange rate more than politics. Now politics is the main reason, though the exchange rate doesn’t help either: restaurant bills and wine prices were noticeably higher everywhere I visited than back home in Montreal. Was the quality of the food worth the trip? Not really.

My main vacation plans this summer stay in Canada, not Europe or the U.S.: for those who have already “done” the beautiful regions of Quebec, Ontario towns like Stratford, St. Catharines and Toronto have plenty to offer culturally and culinarily, as do so many Canadian towns and cities.

If this Trump era has had one positive effect on Canadians, it's this: nothing has brought the country together quite like it since our last Olympic hockey gold, won by both the men's and women's teams in 2014. A country famously divided by region and language, French versus English, East versus West, suddenly found itself uniting against a common foe. The result has been a surge of national pride, and Canadians feeling more consciously Canadian than I've witnessed in my lifetime.

Is it time to soften our stance, to inch our way back toward buying American or visiting the U.S.? That's a very personal decision. For me, the ballet is too hard to give up. But aside from that and work commitments, it'll be Stratford over Broadway, and the Magdalen Islands over Cape Cod.

As for the bourbon, a Montreal bartender recently told me Canadian rye makes a pretty good replacement, suggesting one called King of the North.

I'll drink to that!

How do you feel about the American boycott?

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It occurred to me while writing this post that some subscribers may not be interested in a restaurant so far away, and one that isn’t in a typical culinary destination like Paris, London, New York or even Toronto. But what I find most interesting about Nuema is exactly that it’s NOT in a gastronomic hotbed. Yet thanks to two remarkably talented chefs, Quito is now firmly on the fine dining radar as an emerging culinary destination.

There is so much talk about my own city, Montreal, being on the map or off it. So I think putting the spotlight on a restaurant that has itself become a destination shows just how powerful a cultural and touristic draw a great restaurant can be for a city and country in 2026. The key, of course, is offering something truly unique, and that’s exactly what Nuema does. Read on.

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When researching the restaurant scene in Quito, one name keeps coming up: Nuema. The co-chefs, real life couple Alejandro Chamorro and Pía Salazar, have in the dozen years since opening in 2014 turned Ecuador into a genuine gastronomic destination, and after two dinners there, I understood why.

Inspired by their time working together at Astrid y Gastón, Gastón Acurio’s flagship restaurant in Lima, Chamorro and Salazar saw how this determined chef helped elevate Peru’s cuisine to international renown through his work as a chef, restaurateur, author, television personality, political influencer and public speaker.

With a front row seat to the emergence of Peruvian cuisine on the world stage, the couple felt they could one day bring Ecuadorian cuisine to the same heights. Despite the fact that Quito’s population of approximately 2.8 million is a fraction of Lima’s 10.4 million, it only takes a few ambitious and determined chefs to open a restaurant that draws international diners. And they’ve succeeded. Nuema is today considered the top restaurant in Ecuador and as of 2025 holds the #61 spot on the World’s 50 Best extended list and #10 on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Salazar was also named Best Pastry Chef 2023 by the World’s 50 Best.

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What does all this amount to on the plate? A unique dining experience where hugely creative chefs make the most of Ecuador’s remarkable ingredients. As the first Ecuadorian chef to work at Noma under René Redzepi, Chamorro mastered high end fine dining and Noma’s signature style of foraging, fermentation and seasonal terroir cuisine.

Nuema (named for a combination of their three children’s names: Nuria, Emilio and Martín) made history as the first Ecuadorian restaurant to land on the Latin America’s 50 Best list, drawing international travellers to Quito’s food scene. Chamorro’s impact on Latin American cuisine earned him the Estrella Damm Chefs’ Choice Award, voted on exclusively by his culinary peers across Latin America.

His wife and partner, Pía Salazar, is the restaurant’s second pillar. Widely recognized as one of the most innovative pastry chefs in the world, she’s a culinary star in her own right, known for rethinking the sweet course by making vegetables, herbs and savoury elements the stars of her desserts.

Together, Chamorro and Salazar’s menus reflect their love of their native country and their creativity and technical brilliance. Chamorro travels extensively throughout Ecuador to study indigenous communities and source rare ingredients, and his multi course tasting menus shift continuously with the seasons.

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At Nuema, ingredients are presented at the table before each dish arrives. During my visit, featured ingredients included hearts of palm with neapia (a fermented Amazonian cassava and chili paste), oca and mashua (ancestral Andean tubers), ajo sacha (an Amazonian wild garlic vine) and paiche (one of the largest freshwater fish in the Amazon River). We are so far from anything you’d encounter in a North American or European restaurant, and that’s precisely what makes a meal here such a treat.

As I noticed at Central in Lima, every locally made ceramic plate, spoon and napkin at Nuema is chosen with precision and care, and the minimalist dining space is made beautiful with flowers and foliage. A bright open kitchen lets you watch the team at work. Beverage pairings include wine, cocktails and alcohol free options made on site, and service manages to be both attentive and discreet.

The intricacy and mastery of the cooking explains why the restaurant has earned so much acclaim, yet there’s not an ounce of pretension from the team. A 12-course meal here feels less like a showy tasting menu than a trip through Ecuador, from mountains to ocean to jungle and back to the city, all kept light and approachable. You don’t leave the Nuema table full so much as enlightened.

A meal like this inevitably prompts the question: what elements of the Nuema experience could be integrated into our local Montreal dining scene?

— An increased emphasis on not only using local ingredients but showcasing them to diners so they have a clearer picture of what they’re eating.

— More streamlined restaurant design, where the colour and artistry of the experience come from what’s on the plate rather than what’s on the walls. To that I’d add a semi-open or open kitchen, which in 2026 feels less like a trend than an expectation; customers want to see what’s going on, and it’s genuinely fun to watch the creation of each dish.

— Non-alcoholic pairings given equal weight to wine. Quebec and much of North America are still behind on this, and though I remain a committed wine drinker, the extraordinary care put into non-alcoholic pairings at South American restaurants makes the standard wine pairing feel almost conservative by comparison. And as for cocktails, forget the classics and try drinks made with as many local ingredients and culinary techniques as the food.

— Finally, a personalized menu or keepsake for guests to take home. At restaurants of this calibre, a printed menu, recipe card or booklet of featured ingredients extends the memory of the meal well beyond the table.

Also worth noting: the price. At US$120 for the full tasting menu, Nuema is one of the least expensive fine dining experiences in South America (Central in Lima, for comparison, runs about US$430 per person). And like Central, a meal at Nuema isn’t simply about enjoying dinner. It’s about experiencing something entirely unique to its place.

As I write this, the Nuema team is putting the finishing touches on a more casual bistro next door, which will no doubt be another draw to Quito’s dining scene. Until then, I’d also suggest Salazar’s wonderful café and pâtisserie a few doors down. Named simply “Pia,” it sells gorgeous pastries, standouts being a mandarin meringue tart, a guava tart, and a chocolate ganache and macambo cake, plus terrific breakfast dishes like cassava pancakes topped with burrata, poached eggs, herbs and pesto.

How wonderful to discover a country like Ecuador through the plate.

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When the invitation for a trip to Ecuador arrived a few months ago, I was intrigued. Having recently returned from a trip to Lima, Peru, I’d already fallen hard for the gastronomy of one Latin American country. Could Ecuador be the next?

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I immediately began searching for information about this cou…

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I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed this month, with my new cookbook launch, travels, and personal issues. Faced with limited time to cook and write, I haven’t posted here for a while, and to be honest, at a time when the world seems to be falling apart, I find it challenging to …

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I’ve been travelling quite a bit since the new year, posting about those trips and some of the terrific chefs I’ve met along the way. My book was also recently released, so that’s kept me busy too.

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But one constant in my life is that I cook every day, sometimes for an hour, sometimes all day. It’s only on the rarest of occasions that I’ll break down and order a pizza. Like you, I’m sure, there are days I just don’t feel like cooking. But with four of us in the house and my aversion to letting anyone else near the stove, dinner must somehow get on the table. And once I start cooking, I’m usually gung-ho to make something delicious. Just last night, I looked into my rather empty fridge and found three leeks, a few litres of homemade chicken stock, and a block of parmesan, and within minutes I was whipping up what turned out to be a killer leek risotto. Leeks are quickly becoming one of my all-time favourite ingredients, and certainly one of the most underappreciated.

So why am I talking about leeks when this is a post about cake? Because making dinner can feel like a chore, but a cake? Well, making a cake is nothing but pleasure. At least for me. I make cakes when I need to get my creative juices flowing. If there’s a cake on my counter, it’s either because I’m baking to take my mind off something depressing (take your pick these days), there’s an occasion to celebrate, or I simply yearned to create something scrumptious — and as much as I dislike that word, in the case of cake, it fits.

As a pastry chef, I spent my days making mousse cakes and wedding cakes. In cooking school, the only so-called later cakes we made were Marjolaines and Opéras. Birthday cakes were covered in decorating class, but we never made something like an angel food cake, yellow cake, or chocolate layer cake because my training was in French pastry and those cakes are North American. I love a good layer cake, but truth be told, they can be dull and dry.

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To remedy this, you might want to try a cake soak, which in french we call “sirop d’imbibage.” A cake soak is liquid that is brushed directly onto each cake layer after baking but before frosting and filling. The liquid soaks into the cake, adding more moisture to prevent the cake from drying out while infusing additional flavour and/or sweetness.

The plainer the cake, the more beneficial the cake soak. Cake soaks are also a crafty way to get booze into a cake without spending a fortune.

Cake soaks are most often made with simple syrup, a mixture of equal parts (by volume) granulated sugar and water that’s heated to dissolve the sugar. Simple syrups are a handy choice because they can easily be infused with ingredients that can enhance your cake, which is why they’re also a common ingredient used to flavour cocktails.

Cake soaks can also be made with flavoured milk or vegetable milks, and are best suited to cake with a spongy texture that absorb liquid well. I’m talking génoise, chiffon cakes, lady fingers (as in tiramisu). They can be used with just about any type of cake, but avoid cakes with a tight crumb like pound cake because the liquid doesn’t penetrate very well unless you poke holes in it. And there are some cakes that just don’t need a soak, like Angel food cake which is perfect as is.

To soak your cake you can either use a pastry brush or squeeze bottle to distribute a thin layer of liquid overtop the cake. Now don’t go crazy or your cake might fall apart so avoid pouring it on. And for ideal moistness, always soak the cake on the crumb side as opposed to the crust side.

For a chocolate cake you could use a milk soak flavoured with vanilla extract, a simple syrup flavoured with brandy or rum. For a white cake with fruit, a simple syrup with lemon juice would be nice, and on the boozy side, Kirsch would be great, but so would Triple Sec, Grand Marnier or Chambord (raspberry liqueur). A cake with nuts would ideally be enhanced with a syrup flavoured with Amaretto or Frangelico.

Here are some recipes for cake soaks:

For a milk soak:

Bring to a boil, 3/4 cup (150 g) sugar, 3 cups (750 ml) milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

For a simple syrup soak:

Bring to a boil, 2 cups (500 ml) water, 2 /12 cups (500g) sugar. Once the syrup has cooled completely, add 1/4 cup alcohol of choice.

10 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar or ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract, 750 milliliters / 25.5 fluid ounces milk.

Be sure to always use cold syrup to soak cake layers or the syrup can ferment inside the cake. Not good!

Also, a cake soak will always increase the amount of sugar in your baked product, so if you don’t want to use, it, not to worry. Just be sure your cake layers are fresh and not dry once you start icing them.

Oh and here’s the recipe for the layer cake. This time I didn’t use a cake soak, but the next time i make it, I’m thinking of a coconut milk soak and a sprinkling of toasted coconut overtop.

Scrumptious!

Devil’s Food Cake with Fluffy White Frosting

Serves 12

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If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen my posts about my latest cookbook, A Montreal Cook, which I launched at the end of March. I somehow completely forgot to mention it here on Substack, most likely because I was deep into writing about my recent travels and wanted to get those posts down before the details fad…

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This is the second part of my interview with Chef Jessica Rosval. In this installment, Jessica steps back from her own career to talk about Roots Modena, the nonprofit restaurant and culinary training program she co-founded in 2020. Designed to help migrant women integrate into Italian work…

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For years I had heard about Lima as a great culinary destination, but couldn’t quite picture its restaurant scene. I knew certain dishes were associated with Peru: the well-known ceviche, the Peruvian-Japanese fusion dish tiradito, the famous roast chicken pollo a la brasa, and of course cuy (guinea pig), often described as a sort of miniature suckling …

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As a pastry chef early in my career, I made countless cakes, pies, pastries, flans, tarts and so on. That said, I’m not big on dessert — correction: I’m not big on lousy desserts. Who is? But I have a serious love for desserts made with custard. Mille-feuilles, éclairs and fruit tarts are my…

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The much-anticipated meal was to be the highlight of a recent press trip I took to Portugal. We were hosted by José Avillez, widely regarded as Portugal’s top chef, and the restaurant we were set to lunch in — Belcanto, his two-Michelin-starred crown jewel — did …

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Whenever I’m on a food press trip, I can’t resist asking for a recipe or two. It’s amusing to watch the chef’s reaction—why do you want this? What will you do with it? Should we even share it? They’re naturally suspicious, especially when everyone else is angling for the goodie bag and I’m the one asking how much Triple Sec goes in the margarita.

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That exclusivity is precisely the appeal. If we were all requesting recipes, they’d lose their cachet—and we food writers live for an exclusive. I still remember a press trip to Spain where a Food & Wine editor and I practically dueled over an olive oil cake recipe. We both scribbled furiously in our notebooks. Come to think of it, I never tested or published mine. I wonder if she did? Either way, just trying to beat her to it was half the fun.

Last month at the fabulous Chablé Yucatan, I asked the hotel’s PR director, Debi Cárdenas, for a recipe. She looked surprised but gamely asked which dishes. I suggested three that seemed manageable, she jotted them down, and a few days later—lo and behold—the recipes arrived in my inbox. Thanks, Debi. And extra special thanks to Executive Chef Ernesto Flores!

Here’s the thing about chef recipes: they’re usually pretty abstract. But after years of decoding and testing them, I’ve learned to translate professional kitchen shorthand into proper cookbook format.

One recipe Debi sent was for a sauce I hadn’t requested but was happy to receive: a habanero sauce that’s easy to make but the hottest thing I’ve ever tasted. If you love heat, this is your sauce. Habaneros rank among the world’s spiciest peppers, so if you’d prefer something milder, swap in jalapeños instead.

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The second recipe is for a lovely soup we enjoyed at the start of a meal showcasing Yucatan specialties. I remember slurping it up and thinking: this must be what Mexican children request when they have a cold. It’s that comforting and restorative.

The final recipe is for a dessert I discovered one evening while watching young dancers perform traditional Yucatan folk dances. Mid-performance, I tasted a flan that stopped me cold. I looked down at my bowl, trying to understand what made it so exceptional. It had the structure of flan but a denser, richer texture—somewhere between crème caramel and cheesecake. The flavor profile was distinctly Mexican: vanilla and cinnamon mingling beautifully. It sat in a pool of caramel sauce and was crowned with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

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I thoroughly enjoyed adapting these recipes because with every bite, I was transported back to Mexico and to that beautiful hotel where my only concerns were falling off my bike, encountering an iguana, or serving myself too generous a spoonful of that wickedly hot sauce.

Sopa de lima (Lime soup)

Serves 4-6

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I’m interrupting my Mexico series to post some of my favourite recipes on my Substack for Valentine’s Day. This year I’m posting links to the most Valentine’s style desserts as well as a few savoury dishes ideal for a romantic feast, be it for friends, family, or that special loved one.

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I’ve made and enjoyed them all so now it’s your turn! And it doesn’t have to be for Valentine’s Day. Any day is the right day for a beautiful sweet treat.

Oh and if you are looking for a Valentine’s present, allow me to suggest a gift subscription to Lick My Plate. It’s a lot easier than heading out in the snow for flowers.

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Here we go!

1. The raspberry meringue roulade: easy to make, absolutely delicious, and a good fruit option at a time when raspberries are not too expensive.

   

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Whenever planning a trip, I dread the moment when I start checking out hotels. I always mentally set a price of $300 as the maximum for a hotel room and really get excited when I find something good for less. And I have. Last year, when traveling around France, I found a fine hotel in Avignon and yet another in Burgundy whe…

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Meals in Mexico can be quite copious, so on the days you aren't jumping on the chilaquiles or huevos rancheros, you might want to start your day off simply with a sweet …

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Over 28 years of food writing, I’ve watched culinary hotspots shift from France to England, Spain to Copenhagen, and Peru to Bangkok, with Japan consistently drawing perfection-seekers and Dubai showcasing the Middle East’s finest dining. As a Montrealer, I’d love to claim North America as the next foodie destination,…

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I’m late catching up on my travel writing from 2025. It has been a very busy few months, and this week I’m off to Mexico to visit some more cool restaurants. But first I wanted to go back to last summer, to a trip I made to British Columbia—not the usual beautiful Vancouver, grand Victoria, or magnificent Tofino, but a …

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The cookbooks I use most are the ones I wrote. I wonder if that’s the case with most cookbook authors, but be it a pie crust, a soup, or a brined turkey, if I’m reaching for a recipe, I opt for my own. When I look through my books, I giggle a bit thinking these are really just my favourite recipes I wanted to have all in one place that I am so happy to share. Now at ripe old the wonderful age of 58, having cooked for close to half a century, I know what I’m after in a dish, and anything I’ve put in a book is my conclusion on what I want it to look like, feel like, and most importantly, taste like.

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That said, one cannot live on one’s recipes alone, so I often break out of my norm and go off in search of recipes to expand my repertoire. I recently came upon one from the New York Times baking site for a sheet-pan chicken dish with raisins and croutons that I adored, but adapted to my taste (I always sear meat in a sheet-pan recipe before placing it on the sheet pan to get a bit of extra colour and crispness on the skin). And then yesterday, when planning for a dinner party, I thought, why not give one of those rolled Pavlovas a go? It’s still the holiday season and a rolled Pavlova looks like a bûche so let’s go!

Now if you search the internet, you’ll find plenty of rolled Pavlova recipes, but I just so happened to have the original North American edition of the Ottolenghi Sweet cookbook on my side table, and there on p. 263 was a beautiful rolled Pavlova garnished with peaches and blackberries. Yum! I had some berries in my fridge and thought this cake would be the ideal way to make them shine.

Now I had rarely used the Ottolenghi Sweet book for good reason. It was notoriously full of mistakes. How many mistakes? Try 21 at last count. Yikes! But to be fair, you’d be hard pressed to find a cookbook that didn’t have at least one error. Both my first and second French cookbooks have errors in the pie dough recipes caused by last-minute edits and metric conversions. It’s a pisser, but it happens. I’ve found mistakes in almost every cookbook I own, even ones by the biggest names in the business. But 21 errors?! Apparently they came from the conversion of oven temperatures from the U.K. edition to the North American edition, but even that doesn’t make sense to me because conversions aren’t that hard to manage. Happily, many people had their books replaced and you can find sheets like the one below with all of the corrections.

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Anyway, back to the rolled Pavlova. So I read through the recipe and in the back of my mind, though I knew there were mistakes in the book, I figured my chances of falling on one of the faulty recipes was probably pretty low, so I forged ahead. My pastry chef senses went off when I saw the high oven temperatures, but having not made a rolled Pav before, I figured those high temperatures were part of the technique. So I carried on, as the recipe requested, placing a sheet of meringue in the oven at 450 degrees F and immediately dropping the temperature to 400 degrees for 35 minutes more.

At about the 15-minute mark, I began to smell burning meringue and yes, it was a disaster. And then I did a little research on the faulty Sweet recipes, and yes, the rolled Pavlova was one of the faulty recipes. The correct oven temp was 375 degrees to begin and then 350 degrees for 32 minutes. Big difference! So I threw out the first and made it again, and it worked like a charm. But jeez, throwing out ingredients is never fun.

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Anyway, consider it my last experiment of 2025, and here’s to reliable recipes for 2026!

As for the results of the rolled Pavlova: excellent, but I couldn’t resist adapting the recipe to make it even better (baking temperatures aside, I wasn’t wild about some of the Ottolenghi measures either).

This is my last baking post of 2025, and next up I’ll mention some of my favourite chefs of last year, in Montreal and elsewhere on my travels. Here’s to more magnificent eating and drinking in 2026!

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Pavlova Bûche

Serves 10-12

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I’ve always been a sucker for a moist slice of gingerbread. It’s one of those house smeller-upper cakes that we always see at Christmas time, yet makes for a great snack or dessert any time of year.

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Gingerbread has a complex history, believed to have arrived in Europe in 992 AD thanks to an Armenian monk by the name of Gregory of Nicopolis who eventuall…

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