Conversation with the Cooking with Booze Guys
by Tara Lee
Book: Cooking with Booze, by Ryan Jennings and David Steele, Whitecap 2006, $29.95


Meet the Cooking with Booze dynamic duo, Ryan Jennings and David Steele, who have combined their love of eating and drinking to create a book that draws upon the liquor cabinet for cooking inspiration. Cocktails in hand, they offer a light hearted look at incorporating booze in a range of culinary creations. Full of wit and great recipes ideas, Cooking with Booze demonstrates that alcohol really is the ultimate good time flavour enhancer. Maybe it is possible to be naughty in the kitchen and still come up with something nice!


CityFood: How did your love affair with food begin?
Ryan Jennings: I went to journalism school and I took some culinary courses along the way. I then ended up at ELLE magazine and I was the resident foodie there.
David Steele: I studied management of theatre and special events at Ryerson. I worked with venues and catering organizations when I was doing special events in the college and university circles. I staged national award shows in Halifax and Toronto. The one in Halifax was at one of the big hotels with an Andy Warhol theme. Soup cans and tin foil everywhere.


CF: How do you come together to collaborate on this book project?
DS: Ryan and I both went to Ryerson but we didn’t know each other in the college days. We met through mutual friends. We looked at the marketplace and there really wasn’t anything that takes the flavours that are found in booze and applies them to food in order to expand the spice rack into the liquor cabinet.
RJ: So, one night, David and I drank, we cooked, and we agreed to do a book together. David likes to cook. I like to cook and we both like to drink.


CF: You dedicate the book “to your mothers, who never fed us a TV dinner in our lives.