I'm on a new adventure

And a recipe for chocolate Devil’s Food Cake with Irish Cream Icing.

Hello! If this is your first time reading my newsletter: thank you for popping by – you’re more than welcome here. If you’re returning, welcome back!

If life weren’t interesting enough, it’s just gotten more since I last wrote.

So, here it is, you lovely people.

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I’m on a new adventure

Why, yes. That was me you heard this morning.

If you were listening to CBC Kitchener-Waterloo this morning at about 7:50 you probably heard the announcement:

Beginning 5 April, I’ll be their new food columnist! I’ll be live Friday mornings at 7:40, exploring the Region’s food and drinks scene, talking about what’s happening with growers, makers, thinkers, and eaters.

My accompanying articles will be published on CBC’s site the next day.

Timing, they say, is everything.

At about the time I was emerging from my cocoon, we found out Andrew Coppolino, the voice of the local food scene, and his wife were moving to the Ottawa area to be closer to family. It’s not retirement as I’m sure he’l be sharing his explorations of the capital area’s food scene. Not too long afterwards, I was invited to a conversation.

But he is a a local legend.

For the past 20 years (the last 10 of which were with CBC), he’s been letting us into the restaurant industry and telling us about food manufacturers, farmers, and home cooks. He’s a booster and a guide. His knowledge and expertise are invaluable. He’s leaving mighty big shoes to fill.

A bit about me.

My food writing career could be a study in taking the road less travelled. At least that’s what it was back then.

Before blogging platforms and RSS feeds were around, I started writing online as a natural extension to answering my colleagues’ cooking and food questions as they were exploring the foods they didn’t grow up eating. Then came ezine columns. While still working my day job, I became a part of that disparate pioneering crew of Canadian food bloggers, which started me freelancing. Along the way, my focus evolved from what was on my plate to what others ate. I refocussed my art history* lenses to foodways and food history. Invitations to lecture to students and professional groups on food communications and culinary history followed, as did community talks on regional cuisines.

As a freelance food writer, I’ve covered topics from online food culture to local food culture, from agriculture to AI recipes. In 2017, The Waterloo Region Record’s then-Editor-In-Chief invited me to join their restaurant review team and I added other food-focussed writing to that byline, letting me explore the area’s food scene, from foods we’re known for to new Canadians’ regional cuisines. From 2018 to 2023, my World of Food column for Grand Magazine explored the intersection of immigration, memory, and food of those who made the area their new home.

More omnivorous ramblings by a habitual eater.

Being CBC-KW’s food columnist is the sort of gig that makes my brain giddy as it rides madly off in all directions.

Around here, food is more than just something to eat. We’ve got a complex interlocking that happens in a way not quite like elsewhere.

• Agriculture is embedded into this community’s identity, from farmers who plough hectares and deliver their goods via horse and buggy to those working microplots and pack their bounty into their electric vehicles.

• We’ve a long history in industry and innovation, which makes us home to food producers, from home-based businesses to national brands; our tech and food-focussed incubators give specialised focus to start-ups and new ventures.

• We’re centres of education and research, training food makers and culinary thinkers from across Canada and around the world. What comes out of UWaterloo, Laurier, and UofG influences local, national, and international conversations about food and food policies, and food production.

• And, of course, some of Canada’s best known food writers are local – Edna Staebler and Rose Murray immediately come to mind, but so do people likeGreta Podleski, Charmian Christie, and Emily Richards.

Add the everything all at once shifts happening now – the fragility of the restaurant sector, all the ‘lations (inflation, shelflation, shrinkflation, greedflation), demographic shifts –“here” is an interesting place to be.

My stories will lean into my tagline: omnivorous ramblings by a habitual eater. They’ll focus on the roles food plays and what happens around the plate. But the constant will be (as it has been with much of my writing), sharing stories about people for people. It’s about being curious; not judgemental. I hope you will tune in and join me.

*Yes! I have an Art History degree! HEART fields – humanities, ethics, arts, rhetoric, teaching – provide us with the tools and viewpoints (critical thinking, communication, etc.) society needs to understand the world us and each other as more than just data points and collections of one and zeroes.

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On my book plate:

• The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

• The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

• On the Road, by Jack Kerouac (in progress…not loving it)

Where to follow me:

• Bluesky: @cardamomaddict@bsky.social

• Mastodon: @cardamomaddict@mstdn.ca 

• Instagram: @cardamomaddict

• Facebook: @cardamomaddict

• Threads: @cardamomaddict@threads.net

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Devil’s Food Cake with Irish Cream Icing

This is one of my go-to chocolate cake recipes (how I veganised it for the radio station as a “thank you for giving me this opportunity” are in notes). You need to be organised (melted chocolate, strong coffee) but the results are tasty. I’m not one for lots of icing, but if you are, you may want to double icing for this cake. Or you might just want to double the icing anyway and keep half in the fridge for a bit of a nibble throughout the day.

Preparation time: Approximately 15 minutes

Cooking time: Approximately 30 minutes

Yield: 1 x 22 cm cake or 12 cupcakes

Slightly adapted: from Dorie Greenspan’s Devil’s Food White Out Cake from Baking: From My Home to Yours

For the cake

185 g (310 ml) all-purpose flour

50 g (125 ml) cocoa powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

60 ml yoghurt

60 ml milk

70 g (75 ml) butter

60 ml flavourless oil

100 g dark brown sugar

100 g white sugar

¼ tsp salt

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

50 g dark chocolate, melted and cooled

1 tablespoon espresso powder mixed into 125 ml boiling water

For the icing

110 g (125 ml) unsalted butter, softened

225 g (approximately 500 ml) icing sugar

Pinch of salt

2 teaspoons Irish cream liqueur

Heavy cream or milk (if needed, as needed)

For the cake

Butter and line a cake tin with parchment paper or pop inserts into a 12-bowl muffin/cupcake tin. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F).

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.

Mix together yoghurt and milk. Set aside.

Beat butter and oil until amalgamated. Add brown and white sugars and salt. Cream well (about 5 minutes in a stand or hand mixer). Beat in eggs one at a time before beating in vanilla. Pour in melted chocolate and mix well.

Incorporate the flour mixture with the yoghurty milk by alternating them (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry), mixing well and scraping down the bowl’s sides between additions. Mix in coffee.

Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 25-35 minutes—the top will spring back to the touch and a tester (a toothpick, a thin bladed knife) inserted into the centre will come away clean.

Let cool thoroughly before icing.

For the icing

Cream butter before beating in sugar and salt. Beat in Irish cream. If the icing is too stiff beat in a spoon of cream (or more Irish cream) to loosen it up. Spread, as you will, on the cooled cake(s).

Notes:

Substitutions to veganise the cake:

-       125 ml almond milk plus 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar instead of the yoghurt and milk

-       125 ml oil instead of butter

-       135 ml egg substitute instead of eggs

Substitutions and changes to veganise the icing:

-       Salted vegan butter (don’t use margarine) instead of butter

-       Dairy-free Irish cream instead of regular Irish cream

-       Do not add salt unless you think it needs it

-       Almond milk instead of cream or milk