Packing your pestle for a perfect pesto
Recipe: Pesto
A simple but wonderful thing awaits when you gather pine nuts, parmigiano and your best olive oil into a mortar and start pounding, or in Italian: pestare!
By Louise Crosby
It’s one of the many rituals of summer, like going for ice cream on a warm evening, or eating watermelon at a cottage. When bundles of local basil start appearing, it’s time to gather up the pine nuts, some new garlic and Parmigiano, and your best olive oil, and whizz it all together into a sauce. It’s a simple but wonderful thing.
Classic pesto originated in Liguria, the northern coastal region of Italy that includes the city of Genoa. It is traditionally prepared using a mortar and pestle, as the pounding is believed to bring out the full flavour of the basil. (The word “pesto” comes from the Italian verb pestare, to grind or crush.) It is also traditionally tossed with trenette, a long slender noodle, as well as cooked string beans and sliced small potatoes. This recipe, tweaked ...
Pete’s Dragon rekindles kid imagination
Movie review: Pete’s Dragon
Pulling inspiration from childhood touchstones such as Puff the Magic Dragon, The Jungle Book and Lassie, David Lowery's remake of Pete's Dragon may play to a familiar formula, but it's still warm and fuzzy and fun to cuddle
Wintour is Coming… to home entertainment
What's Streaming: August
The nights are getting shorter, but there's more to sink your eyeballs into when the sun goes down as Tom Hanks, the Met Gala, a High-Rise horror and The Lobster hit home
By Katherine Monk
The First Monday in May (3/5)
Who doesn’t want to go behind the scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? I know I do, even if I’m just getting access to the costume gallery – that small square of space accessible by freight elevator and remote staircases in the bowels of the storied institution on Fifth Ave. Ever since its inception in 1946, the costume institute (now named after Vogue editor and chief fundraiser Anna Wintour) hosts the museum’s annual fundraising ball, which makes or breaks the annual operating budget on the first Monday in May. With so much riding on the Met Gala, you can feel the stress in curator Andrew Bolton’s fashionable fibers from the moment the movie opens. And it ramps up from there as we watch him prepare for the opening of ...
Indignation spurs little upset
Movie review: Indignation
Veteran producer James Schamus makes his debut behind the camera directing Logan Lerman and Sarah Gadon in a sincere but staid adaptation of Philip Roth's 2008 novel
Suicide Squad kills itself for character
Movie review: Suicide Squad
David Ayer gets his own training day behind the cameras of a comic book movie with a nihilist twist, a satirical smirk and a subversive message that's entirely over-packaged
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Summer cobbler takes the cake
Recipe: Brown Butter Nectarine Cobbler/Cake
Part cobbler, part cake, part pudding, a bit crispy around the edges and juicy in the middle, this rustic dish is just as delicious for breakfast as it is for dessert
By Louise Crosby
My refrigerator is bursting at the seams. It’s summer, and after waiting so many months, locally-grown fruits and vegetables are finally ripening. I can’t help myself – it all tastes so much better than produce that’s been shipped in – so a trip to the farmers market requires a carry cart to lug it home in. Trouble is, I don’t know how we’re going to eat it all.
Let’s tally it up. Along with all the other stuff one keeps in one’s fridge, there’s a huge bundle of chard and another of basil, a bulging cauliflower, a bag of green beans, six pints of BC blueberries (on sale) and half a dozen ears of sweet corn. Meanwhile, taking up counter space, is a three-litre basket of ripe field tomatoes and another basket of ripe Niagara peaches....
Movie review: Jason Bourne, again
In this overstuffed action film Matt Damon returns as the spy with amnesia, although this time he remembers everything far too clearly — except when to stop
