Carpaccio of wild sea-bass with marjoram and chilli

This recipe calls for the very freshest sea bass – it should taste sweet and gentle. Ask the fishmonger to fillet the fish for you. Slice and dress just before serving, as the lemon juice will quite quickly begin to cook the fish.

15oz sea-bass
The juice of one small lemon
4 tbsp mild-tasting extra-virgin olive oil
1 red chili, deseeded
1 small bunch of marjoram, leaves only
Sea salt

Place the fish fillet skin-side down on a chopping board. Using a very sharp knife with a flexible blade, slice the flesh of the fish into quarter-centimeter-thick slices, following the grain and working against the skin. Divide among four chilled plates.

Drizzle over the lemon juice and olive oil. Scatter over the marjoram and chili, and finely season with salt. It is important to season the fish well, for this is what will bring the dish to life – not too little but definitely not too much. Serve at once.

Cooking Can Be Recipe for Success

By Vanessa Lu

Rafael Gutierrez can crack an egg perfectly.

The 16-year-old St. James Town resident learned the trick as he was making oatmeal muffins in the kitchen at the Wellesley Community Center.

He was so proud of his feat that he interrupted the three-hour cooking class for teens to grab his cellphone and call his mom Roshelyn to tell her about it.

While it may seem like a simple idea to crack an egg and fry it, it symbolizes the life lessons such tasks and accomplishments offer young people, especially those who live in the city's poorest and neediest neighborhoods.

"Rafael tried something he's never done before," said instructor Sherwayne Morgan, a chef who has lived in the Wellesley area towers for years. "It's great to give him the self-worth and confidence that he can do it for himself. He doesn't have to depend on his mom or anyone else.

"Once you have confidence, the sky's the limit," said Morgan. "It's a little stepping stone."

This free class attended by Gutierrez, soon to be a Grade 11 student at Bishop Allen Academy in Etobicoke, is part of a new city initiative called Recipe for Community, modeled after similar efforts in Alexandra Park.

The program, which focuses on youth and community cooperation as well as neighborhood beautification, is getting $555,000 from the city, Toronto Community Housing, the Toronto Community Foundation and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment's Team Up Foundation.

Projects for the next year include rebuilding the outdoor basketball court with hoops at two levels for adults and children, redoing the park space and offering training classes in everything from bicycle repair to carpentry to culinary arts.

"Recipe for Community is cooking up a better future for our city, one neighborhood at a time," Mayor David Miller said at the program's kickoff on Friday. He chopped carrots for a minestrone soup with the teens and, with other children, managed to sink a basket on his second try.

Outside, Tytan Mohamed, 13, was repairing a bicycle for 15-year-old Chanel Forbes under the careful supervision of Ted Webb of BikeSauce, a Do-It-Your Bike repair shop.

"It's fun, but it hurts your hands a lot," said Mohamed, who was adjusting a cable for the brake.

"It's perfect," he said, but Webb quickly pointed out that, while it was correctly positioned, the tension still needed to be adjusted.

Maria-Julia Di Corpo, a youth outreach worker at the community centre, said the classes are a great chance to talk to teens about various issues, from violence to relationship challenges.

"They love cooking," she said, adding that the kitchen creates a safe space. "We talk about how easy it is to make these meals instead of going out to get pizza."

Di Corpo added that the class has created a family-like atmosphere, because not everyone sits down to a regular family meal.

Gutierrez, who has learned to make butter chicken, shepherd's pie, Greek salad dressing and cookies, says he's going to continue cooking and promises to help his mom.

But he admits he has an ulterior motive. "Girls like guys who can cook, right?" he added.

Lemon-Blueberry Trifles Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 package(s) pudding, instant, vanilla, fat-free, sugar-free, 4 servings
• 2 cup(s) milk, fat-free
• 1/4 cup(s) sour cream, light or fat-free
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 cup(s) cake, angel food, cubes
• 1 cup(s) blueberries
• 2 teaspoon lemon peel, finely shredded
• lemon peel, curls

Preparation
1. In a medium bowl, prepare pudding mix according to package directions using the 2 cups milk. Stir in sour cream, finely shredded lemon peel, and lemon juice.

2. Spoon some of the pudding mixture into the bottoms of 4 parfait glasses. Top with half of the cake cubes and half of the berries. Add remaining cake cubes. Spoon remaining pudding mixture over cake. Top with remaining berries. Cover and chill until serving or up to 4 hours. If desired, garnish with lemon peel curls.

Peanut Butter Stuffed Dates

Peanut Butter Stuffed Dates

• Dates
• Peanut butter
• Confectioners' sugar

If dates have pits, slice lengthwise but only halfway through; remove pit. Spread both halves with peanut butter and fold together. Cut dates in half to make bite-sized pieces, if desired.

Place sugar in a resealable plastic bag. Add stuffed dates and close. Shake to coat. When all dates have been coated, store in an airtight container.

iPhone Apps That Are a Must

I discovered a handy little FREE grocery shopping/list app on the iPhone called Grocery Pal from Twicular, Inc. It's fantastic! The app will find the stores local to my location, scout out specials, remember weekly purchases and help me create grocery lists!

A great app, How To Cook Everything from Culinate.

This is the iPhone app version of the book by the same name and they have thought of EVERYTHING for this cookbook on steroids. Each recipe includes an overview, list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions. The app even includes user reviews for recipes and a timer! It really is a time saver when trying to think of "what's for dinner tonight?"

Red Velvet Cupcakes Gain New Legion of Fans

By Jennifer Bain

Katie Holmes' cravings were so bad she had them flown in from New York - but Toronto has its fair share of red velvet wonders

Red velvet cake, which had a cult following at Eaton's department store restaurants in the 1950s and 1960s, is making a comeback in the form of cupcakes.

Katie Holmes recently had red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting delivered from New York to the Toronto set of her History Channel miniseries The Kennedys.

The story made People.com complete with the recipe from Isabelle's Curly Cakes.

Starbucks, the arbiter of mainstream taste, has been selling a red velvet cupcake (also with cream cheese icing) for two years and says it's a customer favourite.

"It might seem odd, at first, that something you eat would be named after something you wear," says Starbucks.com. "But after you taste this deliciously moist cupcake, we think you'll agree that it's as luxurious as spun silk."

Speaking of moistness, Duncan Hines makes a "moist deluxe" red velvet cake mix. Katie Rousonelos of Madison, Wisconsin created Red Carpet Glamour cupcakes from the mix and just won a trip to the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Her cupcakes will be served at an Aug. 27 reception for the nominees.

In Toronto, you can quell a red velvet cupcake craving at multiple bakeries, including For the Love of Cake in Liberty Village, The Cupcakery on St. Clair Ave. W., and Sweet Tooth on the Danforth.

Still, for every red velvet fan there's someone else who has never heard of the flavour or is baffled by the appeal.

This is really just a mildly chocolate cupcake with a dramatic red hue and gobs of icing. Cocoa powder and red food colouring (or sometimes beet juice) are key ingredients. Buttermilk and some type of vinegar are usually involved.

Red velvet cake was the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel's signature dessert in New York City in the 1920s. In Canada, Eaton's eventually stopped making it in its Round Room. Some say concerns over eating red food dye contributed to the cake's fall from favour. Then in 1989, Steel Magnolias featured a red velvet cake and its popularity began to rebound.

"Red velvet is one of those thing that garners so much attention because of the name," laments Torontonian Howard Chang who blogs about eating and making cupcakes with his girlfriend Sylvia Chan on A Baked Creation.

"Most people understand red velvet is just red dye. I personally don't like putting too much red dye in it. The cocoa powder is used to mask the bitterness of the dye."

Chang and Chan's favourite cupcake shop, Life is Sweet in the Beaches, doesn't sell red velvet cupcakes. The couple tasted a good version at SugarTiers in Markham, but haven't tried enough red velvets to say with certainty who makes the best one.

Cupcake lovers were amused to hear that Holmes, who is playing first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the miniseries, felt she had to fly American cupcakes into Canada on July 20.

In this case, Holmes heard through someone at A&E about Boston-based Isabelle's Curly Cakes being sold in New York at The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English.

Isabelle is English's 17-year-old daughter. She doesn't run the business, but helps create the flavours and recipes.

"A slight trick we do is the slight touch of red wine vinegar and the small amount of cocoa powder in the cake mixture, which gives them that velvety smooth texture," Todd English told People. (There's usually white vinegar in the batter.)

Lindsey Valdez, marketing coordinator for Todd English Enterprises, said this week: "She (Izzy) was very excited to hear that Katie Holmes had tried her cupcakes and she wanted to know if Tom and Suri were going to try them too."

Along with 10 red velvet cupcakes, Holmes ordered 10 grasshopper (dark chocolate cupcakes with mint cream centres and dark chocolate frosting), two double chocolate, two coconut pineapple and two lemon meringue.

Genevieve Griffin, who co-owns For the Love of Cake in Toronto, finds it "kind of funny" that Holmes turned to New York for something so readily available here.

For the Love of Cake's "four-dimensional" red velvet cupcake is filled with chocolate ganache and topped with cream cheese frosting and silver candy pearls.

"I know there are a lot of well-known bakeries in New York City, but I've had a lot of customers come in and say they've tried the ones at places like Magnolia Bakery, and they give us better reviews," says Griffin.