How we as Canadians procure, produce, cook, consume, and think about food creates our cuisine, and our nation of immigrant traditions has produced a distinctive and evolving repertoire that is neither hodgepodge nor smorgasbord. Contributors, who come from the diverse worlds of universities, museums, the media, and gastronomy, look at Canada's distinctive foodways from the shared perspective of the current moment. Individual chapters explore food items and choices, from those made by Canada's First Nations and early settlers to those made today. Other contributions describe the ways in which foods enjoyed by early Canadians have found their way back onto Canadian tables in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Authors emphasize the expressive potential of food practices and food texts; cookbooks are more than books to be read and used in the kitchen, they are also documents that convey valuable social and historical information.

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell in this unforgettable work of dark academia that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. The unique magic system of silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, a secret society dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide… Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Cooking is thinking!The spatter of sauce in a pan, a cook's subtle deviation from a recipe, the careful labour of cooking for loved ones: these are not often the subjects of critical enquiry. Cooking, we are told, has nothing to do with serious thought; the path to intellectual fulfilment leads directly out of the kitchen. In this electrifying, innovative memoir, Rebecca May Johnson rewrites the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge and revelation. Drawing on insights from ten years spent thinking through cooking, she explores the radical openness of the recipe text, the liberating constraint of apron strings and the transformative intimacies of shared meals. Playfully dissolving the boundaries between abstract intellect and bodily pleasure, domesticity and politics, Johnson awakens us to the richness of cooking as a means of experiencing the self and the world - and to the revolutionary potential of the small fires burning in every kitchen.

Cooking is thinking!The spatter of sauce in a pan, a cook's subtle deviation from a recipe, the careful labour of cooking for loved ones: these are not often the subjects of critical enquiry. Cooking, we are told, has nothing to do with serious thought; the path to intellectual fulfilment leads directly out of the kitchen. In this electrifying, innovative memoir, Rebecca May Johnson rewrites the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge and revelation. Drawing on insights from ten years spent thinking through cooking, she explores the radical openness of the recipe text, the liberating constraint of apron strings and the transformative intimacies of shared meals. Playfully dissolving the boundaries between abstract intellect and bodily pleasure, domesticity and politics, Johnson awakens us to the richness of cooking as a means of experiencing the self and the world - and to the revolutionary potential of the small fires burning in every kitchen.

A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel. My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive. Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel. My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive. Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

Ghosts spoke. Women listened. Everything changed. It began with whispers in a dimly lit room. In the 1840s, the Fox Sisters—and the legions of mediums they inspired—ignited the Spiritualist movement that swept through Victorian parlors and presidential campaigns alike. Contacting the dead wasn't merely a parlor It was a political statement, a declaration of self that still echoes. Séances attracted suffragists and scientists, skeptics and charlatans, giving women a voice in a society that often refused to hear them. But as Spiritualism surged, it also blurred the lines between faith, fraud, feminism, and financial opportunity, drawing figures as varied as Harry Houdini, Victoria Woodhull, and even modern self-help gurus into its ever-expanding orbit. From wartime séances to the rise of televangelists, from Victorian ghosts to goop-approved wellness rituals, When We Spoke to the Dead unearths the forgotten roots of today's obsession with manifestation, mysticism, and the power of belief. Exploring America's deep-seated hunger for the unseen—whether through politics, personal empowerment, or grief—this book traces how the supernatural, once condemned as heresy, became the ultimate commodity. Step inside the séance room. The spirits have been waiting.

With lush prose and evocative storytelling, Alicia Kennedy shares her journey “from eater to cook,” exploring how we can eat for both joy and justice in a warming, overworked, and globalized world.  As a girl, I ate like a king.     So begins beloved author, journalist, and influencer Alicia Kennedy’s captivating new book. On Eating is more than a memoir; in true Alicia Kennedy style, it is also on desire, on the roles of women “in the kitchen,” on domesticity, on diaspora, on foodways and food sovereignty, on home and how we find home through food, on how food can help us bring us back to those we love.   Beautifully rooted in place—from Long Island (on oysters, on martinis) to San Juan (on plantains, on sugar), On Eating is not only a provocative bildungsroman and a celebration of appetite, it also challenges each of us to consider our own relationship with food, and how our need to eat—to live—impacts the world.     Ultimately, On Eating is a paean on food and those who grow and cook it, asking the urgent questions in our world today about what and how we eat.  

Ghosts spoke. Women listened. Everything changed. It began with whispers in a dimly lit room. In the 1840s, the Fox Sisters—and the legions of mediums they inspired—ignited the Spiritualist movement that swept through Victorian parlors and presidential campaigns alike. Contacting the dead wasn't merely a parlor It was a political statement, a declaration of self that still echoes. Séances attracted suffragists and scientists, skeptics and charlatans, giving women a voice in a society that often refused to hear them. But as Spiritualism surged, it also blurred the lines between faith, fraud, feminism, and financial opportunity, drawing figures as varied as Harry Houdini, Victoria Woodhull, and even modern self-help gurus into its ever-expanding orbit. From wartime séances to the rise of televangelists, from Victorian ghosts to goop-approved wellness rituals, When We Spoke to the Dead unearths the forgotten roots of today's obsession with manifestation, mysticism, and the power of belief. Exploring America's deep-seated hunger for the unseen—whether through politics, personal empowerment, or grief—this book traces how the supernatural, once condemned as heresy, became the ultimate commodity. Step inside the séance room. The spirits have been waiting.

A lively and magisterial popular history that refutes common misperceptions of the European Middle Ages, showing the beauty and communion that flourished alongside the dark brutality—a brilliant reflection of humanity itself.The word “medieval” conjures images of the “Dark Ages”—centuries of ignorance, superstition, stasis, savagery, and poor hygiene. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors.  The Bright Ages takes us through ten centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them. We look with fresh eyes on the Fall of Rome, Charlemagne, the Vikings, the Crusades, and the Black Death, but also to the multi-religious experience of Iberia, the rise of Byzantium, and the genius of Hildegard and the power of queens. We begin under a blanket of golden stars constructed by an empress with Germanic, Roman, Spanish, Byzantine, and Christian bloodlines and end nearly 1,000 years later with the poet Dante—inspired by that same twinkling celestial canopy—writing an epic saga of heaven and hell that endures as a masterpiece of literature today.   The Bright Ages reminds us just how permeable our manmade borders have always been and of what possible worlds the past has always made available to us. The Middle Ages may have been a world “lit only by fire” but it was one whose torches illuminated the magnificent rose windows of cathedrals, even as they stoked the pyres of accused heretics.   The Bright Ages is illustrated throughout with high-resolution images.