Sittin' in the Kitchen

In the summer of 2010, Globe and Mail feature writer Ian Brown drove across Canada eating whatever came his way. That included poutine, chicken wings, breakfast and lunch at a nudist colony and a prairie feast of Mennonite sausage and meat.

I visit Gelato Fresco's factory in Toronto. Owner Hart Melvin specializes in ice cream desserts for restaurants including The Keg's Billy Miner Pie. He got into the ice cream business 30 years ago to make people happy.

Fred Austin, an owner of Katz's Delicatessen on New York's Lower East Side, kibbitzes with me amid the lunchtime hubbub of this huge vintage landmark. The place is famous for its oversized pastrami sandwiches and for being a survivor in this gentrified neighbourhood that was once a hub of Jewish culture.

I visited Olivia Chow at her home in downtown Toronto just a few weeks before she announced her NDP candidacy in the federal election. We chatted about our mutual passion for food and cooking, in particular our wish for a Canadian national program offering nutritious food for all school children. Like her late husband, Jack Layton, she has a message of hope.

I visit the village of Dundela, Ontario, in the St. Lawrence valley where John McIntosh discovered the McIntosh apple in 1811. He and his son cultivated Canada's most famous apple and its popularity grew. I speak with Nancy McIntosh, John's great-great-granddaughter, who grew up in the Dundela farmhouse. She and I are determined to celebrate the McIntosh apple by making Dundela a tourist attraction.

I attend the third annual Best Butter Tart Festival in Midland Ontario and discover the tart's latest incarnation. The deep-fried butter tart is nothing short of sublime. I chat with fest founder Barb Rowlandson and inventor Cathy Moreau about how it came to be. Nobu Adilman, a judge in the butter tart competition, also offers his take on this all Canadian dessert.

Douglas Quint and Bryan Petroff are partners in life and in business. They started their Big Gay Ice Cream enterprise with a food truck in New York. Now they operate several ice cream shops and have a snazzy book called Big Gay Ice Cream.

I chat with Francis Lam at the Terroir Symposium in Toronto about his childhood food memories, his appearances as a judge of TV food show ‘Top Chef Masters’ and his unusual, delicious rendition of ratatouille.

I chat with Daniel Young of the award-winning website youngandfoodish.com about his passion for fish and chips. Formerly a restaurant critic in New York, he now lives in London where we met at Camden Town's upscale eatery 'Hook'.

I first met Vikram Vij two decades ago and visited his hugely popular Vancouver restaurant Vij's in January 2015. We met a few weeks later at CBC in downtown Toronto and chatted about his mini-empire comprising two restaurants, cookbooks, a line of Indian food products and gigs on television.