Welcome to the Canadian Living food blog. I’m Christine Picheca, resident blogger and food expert. I am a self-confessed foodie – that person who somehow can always turn a conversation into an opportunity to talk about what’s on the menu this week, who gets called when friends have guests coming to town and need a restaurant recommendation, who fields more how-long-do-I-cook-this-turkey calls than a poultry farm, knows where to find the best dumplings in Chinatown and does it all with relish! I have come to my current state of food- and entertainment-focused lifestyle by a combination of natural inclination and a little effort.

Since I come from a lineage of great cooks, I became one through genetics and culinary osmosis long before I took the title on professionally. Food was a means of livelihood for my family, and I was surrounded by it as a child. I never knew anything different from the barrels of cured imported olives, giant forms of Parmesan cheese and fresh-made links of sausage that my parents carried in their Italian grocery store.

After university, I found myself, as many young, artfully educated graduates often do, at a loss of what to do with my life. So I packed my bags and thought I would see what the world had to offer. When I look back at my journals of that trip, what did I find interspersed with the melodramas of a 24-year-old? Recipes for pumpkin and chick pea salad from a café in Melbourne, for Aunt Libby’s fantastic sour milk scones, pencil sketches of foreign fruits and outdoor markets in Indonesia and Malaysia.

One year later, I was back in Canada, and I felt compelled to return to what is in my blood. I enrolled at George Brown College in Toronto and began my formal training as a chef. Another year later, I was cutting my chops in various restaurants around town. I worked my way through the ranks and eventually came to manage the pastry department at the Art Gallery of Ontario. I was the head pastry chef there for five years, creating specialized confections for Toronto’s elite.

When it was time to move on, I took what I had learned in the industry and fulfilled a lifelong dream to own my own business. I opened Very good food catering in 2000. Over the course of my career, I’ve also been an instructor at various cooking schools, contributed to cookbooks as writer and chef consultant, and co-hosted a television cooking show.

In my newest challenge as Canadian Living’s Online Food Editor, I look forward to sharing more of my food philosophies and myself with you. Look for future blogs on how to pick a great steak, 5 great weekday breakfasts, musings on barware, great food finds and entertaining ideas.

And I look forward to your contributions and finding out what fellow Canadian Living Online foodies are interested in.

Cheers, Christine

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