Tell us about your blog
Ginger Rose is a Toronto-based blog that features simple, accessible, and delicious recipes, event reviews, and lifestyle pieces. Through personal anecdotes, photography, and music, readers are able to step inside my world and gain a better understanding of what goes into each recipe that I create and how it was inspired. By giving my readers a peek inside my own life, I hope that they will see food and cooking as more than just a necessity and allow it to bring joy into their lives just as it has for me! The recipes that I create encourage experimentation and creativity for my readers, allowing them to gain the skills and confidence needed to branch out and create unique recipes of their own. Originally targeted to young adults, over the course of its organic development Ginger Rose has gained the interest of a much larger demographic.
What inspired you to begin writing about food?
I was inspired to begin writing about food 2 1/2 years ago thanks to a university assignment requiring me to write a 5-year business plan for myself. A Theatre Studies student at the time, I decided to branch away from theatre and write my business plan with the final goal being having my own cooking show on The Food Network, with the first step being to launch a food blog. My blog quickly turned into something much more for me as it became a resource for my friends, friends of friends, and family to use to access simple and delicious recipes. At the time that I began my blog, hardly any of my friends could be found in the kitchen nor did they have any interest in cooking or baking. Any time I would talk about cooking and baking they would respond that they "don't know how to cook" or "can't cook," when in actuality they had never really given it a chance. It's easy to be intimidated of the kitchen with so many intense shows like Iron Chef and Hells Kitchen being syndicated on television, so I wanted Ginger Rose to open those friends eyes and show them just how simple and fun cooking can actually be! Cut to today, not even 3 years later, and every single one of those friends who claimed to be a failure in the kitchen are now regularly cooking, experimenting, and entertaining with their newfound passion for cooking!
Describe your favorite food memory
My head and heart are both filled with so many wonderful food memories that it's difficult to choose just one. In fact, it's so difficult for me that I just can't do it! Truthfully, when I think of food memories I can't help but become overwhelmed with so many special memories of cooking and baking with my grandmother, who I call my Oma. Making Christmas cookies during the holidays, standing by the stove with her frying zucchini, flying across the yard as we picked rhubarb from her garden, pulling out the old, heavy, and strange raw potato pureeing contraption her brother built years ago to make one of her most cherished German recipes, the list could go on and on. My Oma is someone who truly cooks from her heart and expresses her love through food. She is one of my biggest inspirations and it's easy to see her and my mothers influence in just about every recipe I make. I guess you could say that my Oma and my mother are my secret ingredients!
Cook or bake—which one? Either, both, and why?
I've always been more of a baker, but that was when I would follow recipes strictly, rarely straying to create my own recipes. As I've learned more about cooking and gained more experience, I've come to really appreciate the freedom that comes with cooking. There's nothing like following your instincts and using your creativity in the kitchen to create something all your own, and see the joy on your friends and families faces when they taste your creation!
What is the best thing you’ve ever eaten? Where did you eat it?
Now there's a loaded question! One specific special meal (or should I say meals) comes to mind, although it was a few years ago so my palate may have changed since, but it was at House of Nanking in San Francisco's Chinatown. My family rented a car in L.A. and drove through California to get to San Francisco. We were recommended House of Nanking by just about everyone we spoke to as being the best Chinese food in the city, no man, this was not only the best Chinese food I have eaten, but it has come to be one of the best meals I have eaten in my life to date! It's more than just the food, but the whole experience. No need for menu's, as soon as you're seated your server first asks you how hungry you are, then asks what meat and veg you like. He whisks away and quickly returns with dish after dish of the most incredible fusion Chinese food I couldn't have even dreamt up! In the two days we were in San Francisco, we went to House of Nanking TWICE!
Share your favourite recipe
My Quinoa Stuffed Eggplant is hands down my favourite recipe! Delicious, comforting, healthy, unique, and striking in appearance, this side dish has it all and is the recipe I am most proud to call my own!
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