Jamie Kennedy's Seasons

Barbara Robertson is the author of Wilfrid Laurier: The Great
Conciliator and the co-author of The Well-Filled Cupboard.

Jamie Kennedy’s interest in cooking started at a very early age.
Elizabeth Baird notes in the foreword that “as a kid at public school
he ran home at lunchtime so he could watch Julia Child on television.”
His objective in this cookbook is to present recipes “from the point
of view of a professional cook interpreting for the home cook.” The
book’s framework is seasonal, as it occurs in southern Ontario.
Kennedy, who operates a restaurant at the Royal Ontario Museum, is also
influenced by the “huge ethnic variety” in Toronto’s food markets.

His attention to the seasons is valuable at a time when agribusiness
has made almost everything steadily available—though at a price, as he
notes when counseling the wisdom of preserving foods in the fall:
“these vegetables are still available fresh in the winter. The problem
is that they are super-expensive and taste like cardboard.”

The recipes tend to be formidable, but some are doable and others can
be whittled down to practical proportions. To take a few examples, the
rhubarb fool is simple, the rhubarb crisp is manageable, and the wild
leek soup is feasible if the morels—wherever does he get them?—are
omitted. Kennedy’s counsels of perfection are worth attending to. Even
though the home cook is unlikely to reach culinary heights, it’s
possible to elevate standards a notch or two.