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I absolutely love cast iron and with the exception of a couple of stainless steel pots that I have, I exclusively use cast iron for cooking. I have heard from many people through the years about how difficult it can be to work with cast iron, with many people complaining about their food sticking in the pans and having difficulty in cleaning it.

But in reality, seasoning and maintaining cast iron is much easier than you think, and if you develop a good routine around using your cast iron pans, you will find it is one the greatest materials for cooking with, The most important thing is to develop a good seasoning on the pan and taking care not to destroy this seasoning.

So what is this seasoning that I am talking about? Essentially, when we season our cast iron pans, we are converting the oil into a polymer, which is just a fancy word for plastic., but this is an edible plastic. This seasoning seals the cast iron and creates a non-stick surface. In order for this to happen, we need to get our pans to about 500F at which point the oil undergoes a chemical change and becomes the polymer. And if we take care of our pans, this layer will build and become better with time. My pans are so well seasoned at this point, that water effectively beads on top.

There are a couple of key things to remember in order to maintain this seasoning:

1. Never use anything abrasive in the pan that can destroy the seasoning. I always try to avoid metal of any form from scrapping the pan. This means that plastic, silicon, or wooden cooking tools are best if you need to scrape the bottom, like using a plastic egg flipper.
2. Try to avoid cooking highly acidic foods in the pan. I do cook tomato based sauces but ALWAYS clean and reseason as soon as I am finished cooking.
3. Don’t use harsh cleaners in the pan. A small amount of soap is fine, but never things like ajax or comet, or other kitchen cleaners.
4. Always heat and oil the pan immediately after cleaning it. This does two things: first, it ensures that there is no water left that can cause the pan to rust and secondly, it helps to build that layer of seasoning.

Just like a really nice house plant, or a beautiful garden, its not too hard to do, and with a few simple changes you can have something that you are very proud of. Plus, there are some great health benefits to cooking in cast iron as iron will leach into the food, increasing your iron intake.

I hope that this helps you enjoy your cast iron pan a little more.

There are some things that just cannot be rushed, and with some meals can be greatly improved with a little planning and a little more work. As the saying goes, you get out of things what you put into them. This is certainly true with food, and especially a roasted chicken.

I doubt there will be anyone that is reading this that has never had a simple roasted chicken before. Its a staple of Sunday dinners around the world. Its a pretty simple meal really. Place your chicken in the preheated oven, wait until its done, make a gravy and your are done. Its a comfort food for many, though many people now see it as a rather boring meal.

But it doesn’t need to be. Letting your chicken soak in a simple brine can transform the ordinary into extraordinary. The breast goes from dry and bland to juicy, tender, and oh so flavourful. Each year when I am teaching my students, I have them prepare two chickens at the same time; one that has soaked in the brine, the other has not. And every year its always the same thing, everyone says that they will never cook a piece of chicken that has not been brined again.

The brining solution is very simple to make and consists of nothing more than water, sugar, and salt. It always follows the same ratio :

• 4 cups (1L) water
• 1/4c (50g) salt
• 1/4c (50g) sugar

Now, its important to remember that you want to use a cool or better yet, cold brine when adding it to a chicken to avoid increasing the risk of salmonella contamination. What I tend to do is to place half of the necessary water on the stove with the salt and sugar, and heat until dissolved. Once complete, add enough ice to get the volume you need and stir until cool. Place your poultry in the brine and allow to sit for about 1 hour for each pound that it weighs. After it has soaked, drain it off, give it a quick rinse, and you will be good to go. Watch the video below to see how I go about it.

Another common technique that professional chefs use to improve the cooking of their chickens and turkeys is to truss them, which is a technique of tying them with butchers twine. This improves the look and allows it to cook more evening. The video below will show you the steps to truss your poultry.

I opted not to stuff this chicken, and as you will hear me discuss in the video, I have not stuffed a chicken in a very long time. There are a number of reasons for this, including that its impossible to get enough stuffing, or dressing as we call it here in Newfoundland, into the bird, so I always need to make extra on the side anyhow. But more importantly, it is actually a risky procedure. Raw chicken is loaded with salmonella, and when you stuff your poultry, this stuffing absorbs some of this contamination. You are then forced with either overcooking the poultry to ensure that the stuffing is properly cooked to an internal temperature of 185F or risk undercooked stuffing by pulling the poultry out when its finished. Save yourself the hassle, and do it on the side. I will do another video about this closer to Thanksgiving.

Making a gravy is a great way to add a lot of flavour and really improves the meal. I always make a pan gravy, and the colour from the drippings from the roasted chicken is outstanding, not to mention very flavourful. In this video, I make a simple mushroom gravy with shallots for flavour. Don’t have shallots? No problem, slice up an onion or some garlic, and it will work just as good. Here’s another handy ratio for you to remember. You will need 1 tablespoon of flour for each cup of liquid that you are using to make your gravy. Simply add your flour directly into the pan with all of the drippings and mix well so that it forms a roux (which is a French word we use in the kitchen to describe a mixture of flour and fat). If its too dry looking, go ahead and add a little more butter or oil. Once your roux is made, add your liquid, whisk together, and allow to simmer for 5-10 minutes. It will be one of the finest gravies you have ever made.

Check out part two where I cook the chicken and let me know what you think.

Like many cooks, I started my career with no formal training. My first job was flipping burgers at the local Dairy Queen, and after a failed attempt at university, I decided to cook full-time until I knew what else to do with my life. The months went on and on, and I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I learned a lot on the job, and while I am a cooking instructor, I still firmly believe that there is no better education for an aspiring cook than to be in the thick of things on the job.

But there are a few skills that you can learn in school that can help you accelerate in your career without the worry of harming yourself or others, and knife skills are one of those things. I truly wish I would have gone to school at the beginning to learn proper knife grip since it may have saved the top of my thumb.

In June of 1993, I was working at the Chateau Lake Louise as a second cook, and was on the cold line for the Poppy Room. This was a busy and demanding job in a hotel that was serving thousands of people each day. I was prepping lettuce for salads or sandwiches, who knows, when woosh, I took a piece the size of a dime of the top of my left thumb. I don’t know if there are many cuts that can be worse in the kitchen, and I certainly stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. Ever since, and particularly since I have become a cooking instructor, proper knife grip is something that I strive to teach.

In my humble and honest opinion, good knife grip is the most important skill to develop for cooks, whether you are working at a 5-Star restaurant or simply cooking for yourself at home. It will give you confidence in what you are doing, and will help to improve the speed and accuracy of your work.

Today’s video talks about the most important knives that you should have in your kitchen and then demonstrates the proper grip to hold your knife while demonstrating where to place your other hand.

I will do another video in the future that goes a step further, and will demonstrate specific cutting techniques.

I’m guessing that some of you will have the same experience as I do when it comes to fireweed. Its a plant that is all over the place, but I never really knew what it was until much later in life. In my late 20’s, I moved to the Yukon, where fireweed is the territorial flower, and it is a widely used symbol. You see images of it everywhere, and its nearly impossible to go there and not find out about it.

The next time that I was here in Newfoundland after having lived in the Yukon, I started seeing it everywhere. I had never really noticed it before that, and honestly, I think had you asked me if it was here before that, I would have said no, unaware of its actual existence.

But am I ever glad that I know about it now because it makes a wonderful jelly that is very easy to make. It takes just a few simple ingredients. Some fireweed flowers, water, lemon juice, sugar, and pectin. This is a great chance for many of you in to increase the amount of wild food that you are eating.

In the video below, I will show you how to make some fireweed jelly at home, and I even will give you a few tips around safe canning procedures, as well as a few tips about some tools that you might want to have if you intend to do canning at home.

To make the fireweed jelly you will need

8 cups of fireweed flower petals
4 cups of cold water
1/4 cup of lemon juice
5 cups of sugar
2 packages of pectin

Here’s another tip for you (and this is something that I talk about in the video), there is a very simple ratio that you can utilize to make this and other jellies using the metric system and a kitchen scale. You can use a ratio of 1g of sugar for each millilitre of liquid that you have (i.e. 1L of liquid means 1kg of sugar). And you can add one package of pectin for each 500ml units, so do you best to get a nice round volume and you will have yourself a very tasty treat for yourself.

So, get out there and start picking some fireweed and make yourself some jelly. You will probably be as glad as I am to have this sitting in your pantry in the middle of the winter.

It always amazes me when people are surprised when I tell them that a dull knife is more dangerous and more likely to cause injury than a sharp knife. They often think that simply because a knife is sharp, that it will somehow cut them. But if you simply keep your hands away from the blade, it can’t cut you. I actually plan to do a video in the near future about the proper grips and chopping techniques for the various kitchen knives, and it will take no time for you to master these.

But for now, I want to talk a little about knife maintenance or specifically the difference between sharpening and honing a knife, and the correct tools to do each.

Sharpening knives involves removing small amounts of the blade, normally by running it across a sharpening stone. Generally most sharpening stones have two different sides (just like the one I use in the video below), but you can get others that are far more expensive and have three different grit levels, set into wood and includes a rack. Personally, I never felt the need to spend the extra money on something that looks pretty, and am certainly the type of person that cares far more about function than they do form. Sharpening is something that is done infrequently and even when I was working in restaurants and my knives got a lot more use than they do now, I rarely used my stone more than once a month.

Honing a blade is done by using your steel, a tool that looks similar to a sword. This is something that should be done frequently, and when done correctly can prevent you from having to sharpen your knives on a stone as often. Running your knife across your steel helps to smooth out the edge of your knife, making it easier to cut through items.

Regardless of whether you are sharpening your knives on a stone or honing your knives on a steel, there are a number of things that you should keep in mind:

1. Always keep the blade at the same angle when passing the edge over both the stone or the steel. You are aiming for something in the 15-20° range. Once you start on a specific angle, maintain this angle for as long are you own that knife.
2. Make sure that you pass the blade over the stone or steel the same number of times for each side of your knife otherwise you will end up with a lopsided edge that will not cut properly.

Here are a couple of other things to keep in mind when using your steel:

1. Use your steel every time you are going to use your knife, and use it frequently while using your knife. I normally suggest using the steel every 10-15 minutes of use of a knife.
2. Do not over steel your knife, otherwise you can dull your knife. This may seem counter-intuitive to the previous tip, however, while you should use the steel frequently, there is no need to pass the blade across the steel more than 5 or 6 times for each side.
3. Don’t forget to wipe the blade clean after steeling the blade otherwise you can get microscopic metals shards into your food.

A well maintained blade will make your kitchen work more enjoyable and safer. Take the time to use these tools correctly and your knives will last a lot longer.

I have been cooking for a very long time. In fact, I really can’t recall when I first started spending time in the kitchen, I just remember always wanting to be in there. It was a place of solace. I have so many great memories spent in the kitchen with my mom and my nan, my first two cooking teachers.

My first cooking badge when I was in the Cubs was my cooking badge. In grade 2, our class made a cookbook for Mother’s Day gifts, and I used a recipe for cottage pudding that I still make today.

The kitchen has always been my central to my life. It is my happy place.

But the kitchen I had in my home was not a happy place. It was in serious needing of an major update, and did it ever get one.

My old kitchen counter didn’t give me a lot of space to work.


The stove was tucked into a dark and dingy corner, where the paint in the wall bubbled because it was too close to the heat. The fan just recirculated the smoke filled air.


The stairs to the basement sat right in the middle of the house wasting a lot of valuable space.


This was the main load bearing wall the divided kitchen from the living room. The staircase to the basement ran along the other side of this wall.


The walls are gone and there is a massive hole in the floor.


The mostly finished kitchen. I still have a few details that need to be finished off.


I love the new fridge. The bottom section is the freezer, divided into two sections each with sliding drawers similar to the crisper draws of most fridges.


The island top measures 5’x9′, with an overhang on the living room side. I hope to add some stools soon.


A good sink is essential, and this one is a great sink. Its an extra deep sink made deeper since it was put in as a undermounted sink.


Having a stainless steel bench next to the stove is amazing to have. It gives me lots of space to work.


I had a stainless steel backsplash put up behind the stove. The walling near the stove and along that wall is actually vinyl flooring, which I selected to make sure I could give it a good scrubbing.


Having the dishwasher in close proximity to both the sink and the cupboards where the dishes go is going to be super convenient. There is an extra deep drawer under the sink for all the cleaning supplies. The sliding drawer the the right of the sink is where the garbage hides.


So that’s the new kitchen. It was a long process to get it to where it is, and its not finished yet.

So, what’s next? Why do a whole blog post about the kitchen renovation?

Well, like any reasonable chef, I am always planning ahead, and plans I’ve made. The hope is to use this blog as a place to showcase some food pictures, tell a few stories, share a few tips, and even post a few videos helping you to make better food.

Here’s to a brave new venture.