Canadian Food Columnist Marion Kane:Savior of Cooking

Journalist Profile: Marion Kane

Everybody has one true love, and for Marion Kane, that love is food. Reflected in both her writing and her life, Marion Kane has been sharing her love of food with readers in Canada and her food loving celebrity friends and icons. Having just written her last article for the Toronto Star in August of 2007, Kane has given readers over 20 years of recipes, insight, and inspiration and invited readers to share thier passion for food with those around them.

More and more I see the death of what was once an honored special time shared among family friends: the home-cooked meal. The most recent evidence of this was when a friend excitedly suggested we bake cookies. We went to the store to get supplies, which I thought meant butter and chocolate chips or some kind of special nuts, but instead she headed for the refrigerated cookie dough section. Needless to say, I was mortified.

But Kane’s column was more than just about cooking, it was about life and provided real insight into the world of food in a way that only a journalist can. In her 20 years of column writing she interviewed many amazing people. She became friends with the late cooking legend Julia Child, shared an intimate lunch with actress Sofia Lauren, and corresponding with an ex-Mafia cook in the witness protection program who was working on a cookbook.

Food is the one thing that links everyone from glittering celebrities to people you’d run into on the street. That very thing happens to Kane frequently, all types of people stopping her on the street who read her column. From fire fighters to a little old Latvian woman who had fled a concentration camp there stopped her to tell her how much they loved her column and discuss their favorite foods and swap recipes like they had just run into an old friend from years ago. Being able to connect with that broad of an audience as a writer must be a really unique and fulfilling experience that most journalists would have a hard time achieving.

So to bring back an earlier point, home cooks are dwindling fast. Maybe here in the States it’s our lack of inspiration. Love or hate figures like Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray offer little inspiration in comforting, warm, homey, and social meals, giving short cut solutions or snobbish recipes that would only spark the interest of those who could afford expensive restaurants but will never take the effort to actually do it themselves. So here we are. Who will stick up for those of us in the middle of those who want to fake it and those who will never make it?

This is where talented, passionate journalists like Marion Kane are needed. Someone to remind us of the recipes our grandparents lovingly prepared for for our parents, and if we were lucky enough, for us as well. Someone to remind us that there is a whole world outside the take-out box. Someone to remind us that we are what we eat, and that food is to be shared and cherished among family and friends, not wolfed down when we get a spare moment for a bite to eat. Parents can cook with children, spouses can cook special meals together, friends can gather for a potluck style feast, and carefully planned and prepared dinner parties can become stylish weekend events once again with the right inspiration.

Although her days of writing are over at the Toronto star, Kane will soon be starting her own online blog on her website at marionkane.com. Hopefully she will continue sharing her love of cooking and life with readers across the web and inspire others to follow in her footsteps, bringing us back to the table, and rekindle our love of good home-cooked food.

To learn more about Marion Kane go to www.marionkane.com