Here are the year’s best cookbooks
Annual Taste Canada Awards presented at gala ceremony
Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Taste Canada revealed the winners of its 20th annual Taste Canada Awards, officially announced Monday night at a gala at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Toronto. The annual awards recognize the best in culinary writing (and of course, recipes) in Canadian cookbooks and blogs in the last year.
Toronto author Naomi Duguid’s Taste of Persia: A Cook’s Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan ($ 50, Artisan by Thomas Allen & Son), won gold in the “regional/cultural cookbooks” category. Duguid, who came to the Star’s test kitchen last year to make lamb koftas, has already garnered widespread acclaim for the book, including a James Beard Award for best international cookbook of the year and was named one of the best cookbooks of the year by publications such as the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and Food & Wine.
In the same category, Vancouverbased Pailin Chongchitnant won silver for her debut cookbook, Hot Thai Kitchen: Demystifying Thai Cuisine with Authentic Recipes to Make at Home ($30, Appetite by Random House), which has a delicious Northeastern Pork Rib Soup with Toasted Rice recipe that my coworkers loved.
Daphna Rabinovitch’s The Baker in Me ($45, Whitecap Books) scored gold in the “single-subject cookbooks” category (the newsroom is a big fan of her Gruyere, Parmesan and Chive Scones). Walking away with silver was Food Network Canada star Anna Olson for her Bake with Anna Olson book ($35, Appetite by Random House), which has a Tasty Flourless Jelly Roll she made in the Star’s test kitchen last winter.
Restaurant cookbooks took the “general cookbooks” category with Vancouver chef James Walt’s Araxi: Roots to Shoots, Farm-Fresh Recipes ($38, Figure 1) winning gold and Jim Sutherland’s Earls The Cookbook: Eat a Little. Eat a Lot. 110 of Your Favourite Recipes ($35, Appetite by Random House) taking silver.
For the health and special diet cookbooks category, vegan blogging juggernaut Angela Liddon from Oakville took gold for her second cookbook, Oh She Glows Every Day: Quick and Simply Satisfying Plant-Based Recipes ($32, Penguin Canada). Her Oh She Glows site also won gold for best health and special diet food blog.
Other winners this year include Jennifer Cockrall-King for Food Artisans of the Okanagan and Frankie Flowers and Shannon J. Ross for Food to Grow: A Simple, No-Fail Guide to Growing Your Own Vegetables, Fruits and Herbs in the “culinary narrative” category; Sean Bromilow and Janice Lawandi for their respective blogs Diversivore and Kitchen Heals Soul.
For French-language books, winners include Racha Bassoul’s Mon Liban, ma cuisine; Ethné de Vienne and Philippe de Vienne for La cuisine d’Ethné et Philippe: Recettes, épices et techniques and Stéphanie Côté for La santé par l’intestin: 21 jours de menus.
For the full list of winners go to TasteCanada.org. karonliu@thestar.ca