NOSHING ON NOSTALGIA
Food blogger revives Prairie classics
Edmonton food writer Karlynn Johnston is truly a master class in working both sides of modern food culture.
For 10 years, the author of Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky has been feeding her blog The Kitchen Magpie, a consistent diet of dishes beloved by family and friends, with a unapologetic nod to items that take us back to a simpler time. Over that period, Johnston has amassed 88,000 Facebook fans and 26,000 Twitter followers, while enjoying 750,000 monthly page views on The Kitchen Magpie.
But Flapper Pie, published in 2016 and featuring vintage desserts, also sold 12,500 copies (making it a Canadian bestseller twice over). Johnston’s track record would suggest that the internet hasn’t destroyed all forms of publishing and there remains a living to be made by food writers who know what they’re doing.
“No matter what, people still like cookbooks, thank goodness,” said the 43-year-old Johnston, a mother of two teenagers who grew up as guinea pigs for her burgeoning business.
“There is also the searching and looking through the trash on the internet. Could you imagine how long you would have to spend tracking the 100-plus recipes in this book? It’s still convenient to buy cookbooks.”
Of course, having a marketable concept is key and, as Johnston noted, “people really get excited about stuff your mother used to make.” Nostalgia is trending and that includes classic Prairie foods created by mothers and babas that have graced picnic benches, hall parties and Sunday tables for generations.
With the release of her second cookbook The Prairie Table (Suppers, Potlucks & Socials: Crowd-Pleasing Recipes to Bring People Together, published by Random House’s Appetite imprint), Johnston continues to prove there is beauty in the approachable and style need not be sacrificed when connecting with our collective past.
To be released May 21, The Prairie Table offers dozens of recipes — only a handful of which are repeated on the blog — from salads and vegetable sides to home-baked breakfasts, easy main meals and portable desserts. There is an entire chapter devoted to the Ukrainian heritage of the Prairies and Johnston’s mother agreed to part with her recipe for pillowy perogies.
Johnston said the Ukrainian section was the hardest thing she’s had to do.
“My mom and my grandma, they just know by touch how perogies should be. My great-grandmother would just stand with the dough in a bowl on her hip and talk to people while she cooked. She didn’t even look at it. That comes from decades of working with the dough and when she was done with it, it was velvety and soft.
“Give me another decade or two,” she added. “There’s a reason the babas are good at it.”
True classics such as sweet and sour meatballs, creamy baked rice pudding and Grandma Ellen’s cold picnic barbecue fried chicken anchor the collection. But don’t expect anything vegan (although there is a lovely mango, avocado and arugula salad that is coincidentally free of animal products) or gluten-free.
“I’ve thought about taking that on, but you could spread yourself a little thin. Better to do what you do really well,” said Johnston.
Another noteworthy addition to The Prairie Table (based on demand by Johnston’s readership) is an entire section on libations. The chapter is penned by Mr. Kitchen Magpie, Johnston’s husband Mike, who now works full time in the family business and has developed an extensive cocktail repertoire for the blog.
Focusing on her strengths has put Johnston in the enviable position of having a home-based business that earns a good living. To produce three dishes and a couple of cocktails a week for The Kitchen Magpie, the Johnstons generally prepare batches of food and drink on Sundays and then photograph them to write about as the week goes by. Social media takes up a lot of time, as does thrifting for vintage props (one of Johnston’s signatures).
Johnston said she works about six hours a day, seven days a week. The day we spoke, she was heading to the family cottage for the weekend to cook and take pictures.
“It’s a great gig. There’s always something else to learn. That’s the good thing about food.”