Curl Up With A Good Book

Award-winning Out of Old Ontario Kitchens is a window into the past, exploring the stories of the First Peoples and settlers. It pays homage to all those who trapped and fished and hunted; to those who cleared the land and planted crops; and most importantly to all those women — our mothers and aunts, our grandmothers and great-grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers — who got up and lit the fire; who toiled and stirred and cooked and baked and who kept families alive through long hard winters, through plagues and depressions, famines and wars. Work every bit as important as agriculture, commerce, mining, politics, and the development of infrastructure.

With over a hundred historically sourced recipes as well as scores of old photographs, early artworks, botanical prints, and illustrations, Out of Old Ontario Kitchens is both a visual and virtual feast. If you want to know what life was really like in early Ontario, come to the table with us. Food stories are, after all, the real stories of our lives.

Lindy Mechefske is a former scientific journal editor turned writer. She is a two-time Taste Canada Gold Award winner for Out of Old Ontario Kitchens and Sir John’s Table. She is also the author of A Taste of Wintergreen and the food columnist for the Kingston Whig-Standard (Canada’s oldest newspaper). Her work has appeared in a variety of anthologies, magazines, and literary journals.

February 1: Introduction to history of cooking in Ontario. Traditional Bread recipes.

February 8: Conversation about how bread recipes turned out. Main Course dishes and recipes.

February 16: Conversation about how main course recipes turned out. Dessert recipes

February 22: Conversation about how dessert recipes turned out. Sneak peak of Lindy’s upcoming book on picnics.

Email askalibrarian@huroncounty.ca to register!

Between English classes, job interviews and missing their home in Syria, Salma’s mama hasn’t smiled much lately. A homemade Syrian meal might cheer her up…but Salma doesn’t know the recipe, or what to call the vegetables in English, or where to find the right spices! Luckily, the staff and other newcomers in her Welcome Home have all kinds of skills to share. But even with their help, can Salma cook the Shami Foul before Mama gets home?

Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author and LGBTQ-refugees advocate. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, won the Independent Publisher Book Award, The Canadian Authors Association’s award, and was shortlisted for a Lambda Award, and longlisted for Canada Reads. The novel is translated to French, German and Hebrew.

His children’s book, Salma the Syrian Chef is nominated to the Forest of Reading’s Blue Spruce award, and named amongst the Best Books of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews and Library School Journal. It won the Middle East Book Award 2020.

His forthcoming novel, The Foghorn Echoes, to be released by Penguin Canada and Canongate UK in Summer 2022.

Danny graduated from UBC with an MFA in Creative Writing and lives in Vancouver with his husband, Matthew Ramadan.

Join Danny Ramadan on Saturday, February 20 at 1 pm for a virtual reading of Salma the Syrian Chef, following by a Q&A!

Email askalibrarian@huroncounty.ca to register!