Anna Olson is one of Canada\u2019s most esteemed chefs. \u00a0She has hosted Food Network\u2019s Bake with Anna Olson, Fresh with Anna Olson, and Sugar and written ten successful cookbooks. \u00a0Her own love of baking began in childhood. \u00a0Now, more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of Canadians are worried they are missing out on valuable family memories by not cooking and eating together, according to a recent omnibus survey commissioned by LG Electronics Canada.\u00a0 They teamed up with Anna Olson on the LG Kitchen Memory Rescue campaign to inspire Canadians to cook together more and make meaningful memories.\u00a0 We had the chance to speak with Anna about the partnership and her own cooking memories.<\/p>\n
Our readers always like to hear someone\u2019s story from the beginning.\u00a0 How did you become a pastry chef?\u00a0 Was it difficult to transition from the corporate world into the kitchen?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think that a lot of people who love to bake or cook usually have an influencer in their life.\u00a0 I grew up baking and my grandmother was my bake influence. \u00a0It was her way to communicate and express her love.\u00a0 I was just drawn to the kitchen at that time, more than anyone else in my family was.\u00a0 I spent the time when I was really little baking with her and that became an after school activity as I was getting older.\u00a0 It was my stress reliever when I was in university.<\/p>\n When I made it into the banking world it was very stressful because I knew I wasn\u2019t where I should be and I didn\u2019t understand why I wasn\u2019t clicking with the business.\u00a0 Then, I had what I nicknamed my muffin epiphany.\u00a0 I was up at 2am baking banana muffins because I couldn\u2019t sleep and I knew it was the only thing that was going to relax me.\u00a0 It was in that moment, as I was bleary eyed, staring at these muffins, that I realized that this is what makes me happy.\u00a0 \u00a0It took a little coordinating but once I had that moment, it was as quick as three months and I was out of the corporate world and enrolled in cooking school and I haven\u2019t looked back.<\/p>\n Baking can take as much discipline as an office job, because it is so precise.\u00a0 What are your thoughts on baking versus cooking?<\/strong><\/p>\n There is that trust factor that is different than with cooking.\u00a0 When you cook, you can tweak as you go and add a little bit of this or that.\u00a0 When you bake a cake or anything batter or dough based, once you have put it into the oven, you have relinquished control.\u00a0 The oven is the one in charge; you are no longer hands on.\u00a0 That\u2019s why having the right tool is very important and your oven becomes your best friend.\u00a0 When I develop recipes, the baking ones take twice as long or longer than the cooking ones.<\/p>\n According to the survey commissioned by LG Electronics Canada, 72% of Canadians agree that aromas from family recipes bring back memorable family moments.\u00a0 What are the recipes that bring you back to some of your happiest memories?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think memories and food aromas are very closely tied together.\u00a0 Cinnamon is one of those aromas that brings me back to being a kid.\u00a0 My Mom was a big pie maker and she would make delicious apple pies in the fall and strawberry-rhubarb pies in the spring.\u00a0 It was my grandmother who made the yeast breads, so cinnamon buns totally bring me back to a positive food memory.\u00a0 I have taken this combination of my grandmother\u2019s cinnamon buns with my Mom\u2019s strawberry-rhubarb pie and put them together to modernize and personalize it a bit.\u00a0 Adding fresh fruit to cinnamon buns is what I like to do to adapt to the seasons, put my little twist on it, but give me that memory connection to my family and to being a kid.<\/p>\n How did the partnership with LG Electronics Canada come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m thrilled to be part of this campaign and we were having this conversation about kitchen memories and kitchen memory rescue.\u00a0 We were aligned in our thinking that the message to get out there was to look back at these moments and memories. \u00a0I associate food and food aromas with the sense of bonding because it is so much a part of my life.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a struggle because \u00be of Canadians are worried that they are missing out on these opportunities but the intention is there.\u00a0 That is where the alignment happened \u2013 we wanted to connect together to inspire and motivate, combining the past, present and future.<\/p>\n You take these old recipes that our grandmothers used to make and maybe they are not precise.\u00a0 Maybe you mix it until it\u2019s right and cook it until it\u2019s done, but let\u2019s use modern technology with all of these advantageous features like the LG Probake Oven that accelerates your cooking time by 20% so that we can get to the memory moment. \u00a0\u00a0The food memories for me are not always the big event like weddings or Christmas dinners.\u00a0 It\u2019s in the little moments, like a Saturday morning later in the season when tomatoes are out, bringing them home from the Farmer\u2019s Market.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to make a three day project out of making chili sauce but you can do it in under an hour while those tomatoes are still warm from having just been picked.\u00a0 It gives us a good connection to the food that we are eating and the people that we are sharing it with.\u00a0 Then, it becomes a memory that you live over and over again when you open up that chili sauce.<\/p>\n In the Kitchen Memory Rescue video<\/a> with Ingrid, you mention that taste and memories are intertwined.\u00a0 In many families, recipes are hard to recreate.\u00a0 Our mothers and grandmothers just seemed to know what to do by taste and feel versus precise measurements.\u00a0 How can we replicate those recipes, and memories without those details?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our grandmothers didn\u2019t start out baking that magically all by themselves.\u00a0 It was a process for them too, so we have to give ourselves a break.\u00a0 Even when I\u2019m making a recipe, I know that the first time I make it, it\u2019s the recipe\u2019s audition.\u00a0 I need to feel each step of the process.\u00a0 How the ingredients are combining, what it looks like going into the oven, how it behaves when it comes out.\u00a0 You need to not just blindly try to recreate the recipe, but inject your own heart and spirit into it.<\/p>\n When we go on vacation, food tastes better.\u00a0 It may be because of the ingredients themselves and the combination of flavours, but it is also the mindset that we are in.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same when you are creating or baking the recipe \u2013 just being in the moment.\u00a0 It\u2019s reliving the moment and owning it as part of a new moment that we are creating right now.\u00a0 It takes a little tweaking and practice and I know with Ingrid, it was about respecting the recipe ratio, but I was trying to speak to the balance.\u00a0 She liked using a lot of jalapeno peppers and that was very personal to her.\u00a0 I say latch onto those things that you know are just yours but leave yourself wriggle-room because ingredients do change.\u00a0 If you have a Scottish grandmother who made shortbread, remember that the butter is different here, so we are going to have to allow a little bit of space.\u00a0 This is where technology helps us.\u00a0 With the right tools and appliances, we can enjoy the journey as we rescue these recipes.<\/p>\n You are very busy with your career between TV appearances, writing cookbooks and more.\u00a0 How do you make time for baking and home cooked meals?<\/strong><\/p>\n That is the big question, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 We all have the will, but how do we get there?\u00a0 Part of partnering with LG Electronics on the Memory Rescue is reaching my goal to inspire people to try and make time.\u00a0 You have to look at your habits.\u00a0 \u00a0There are quiet moments somewhere and we have to just take a breath and find out when those moments are.\u00a0 Even if it means rolling out of bed just a half an hour earlier on a Saturday morning to go visit a Farmer\u2019s Market or even a nearby grocery store.\u00a0 Pay attention to where the ingredients are from, what\u2019s in season and make an activity out of making breakfast together.<\/p>\n Take the cinnamon buns that I spoke about; you can actually prepare them the night before.\u00a0 You can pop them in the fridge overnight and in the morning, you take the cold pan from the fridge and put it in the oven.\u00a0 The LG Probake Oven has a proofing function so you just hit it for 30 minutes and you don\u2019t even need to be in the kitchen.\u00a0 With the app, you can set the oven to 350 degrees and it adapts to the convection function.\u00a0 You can be somewhere else in the house and you are going to smell those cinnamon buns baking.\u00a0 Without a lot of work, you can wake up to cinnamon buns and not have to be up at 5am to make them.<\/p>\n To me, part of shopping together, motivates us to be together in the kitchen.\u00a0 It also helps us make better food decisions.\u00a0 It can be a challenge with kids to get them to eat their vegetables, but if they are part of the process, in shopping and cutting and assembling something.\u00a0 With my Miso Cod Parchment Parcels, you can change the vegetables to what is in season, but everyone can make their own little parcel, you bake it and in under 20 minutes they are cooked\u00a0 and you are eating this beautiful, fresh, wholesome steamed fish dish.\u00a0 It could easily be all vegetables if you wanted, you can easily switch it up.\u00a0 That leaves you room for the sticky bun the next day.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mindset.<\/p>\n What local ingredients would we find in your refrigerator right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n I did make a trip to the Farmer\u2019s Market and I was thrilled to see that full (summer) season has kicked off. When you buy from someone who has the brown under their finger tips from picking strawberries to digging up potatoes, it gives you an amazing connection to the ingredients to get into the kitchen and cook and share.\u00a0 \u00a0I always buy too much which is why I rely on a good refrigerator to keep my ingredients fresh.\u00a0 I have multiple lettuces \u2013 red leaf lettuce, red Boston, green Boston.\u00a0 I have a kilo and a half of fresh asparagus.\u00a0 This time of year, I eat asparagus every day because it\u2019s in season and so sweet.\u00a0 By the end of the season, I\u2019m so sick of it that I don\u2019t need to look at it until it comes back the next year.\u00a0 I have radishes.\u00a0 I saw the first garden peas out, I haven\u2019t gotten around to shucking them yet, but I make a snack out of those.\u00a0 Rhubarb, strawberries, chive blossoms and fresh thyme available and eggs so that\u2019s what I have right now.<\/p>\n Being Canadian is so much a part of your identity as a chef and baker.\u00a0 What do you think our nation\u2019s biggest contribution to the culinary world has been?<\/strong><\/p>\n Local and seasonal ingredients are very Canadian.\u00a0 You can shop locally and cook globally.\u00a0 We love to toss around \u201cwhat is Canadian cuisine?\u201d\u00a0 Canadian cuisine is all cuisine; it means taking those ingredients that are sourced here and applying them to your cultural heritage.\u00a0 Going back to the Kitchen Memory Rescue, part of the fear noted in the survey is that we may lose some of our cultural heritage by relying on pre-pared foods too much.\u00a0 If we can reach back to that dish, side dish or condiment that we grew up with and recreate that, it does more for us than just the dish itself.\u00a0 It\u2019s about preserving our heritage.\u00a0 My background is Slovac, so I have sour cream in my veins, but baking some of my grandmother\u2019s recipes depending on the time of year, is just so important to me in terms of preserving that memory and then paying it forward and sharing it with future generations.<\/p>\n I feel fortunate that I have been able to travel a lot to speak about food, and I have spent a fair bit of time in South East Asia. People there would ask me what is considered Canadian cooking?\u00a0 In Singapore, I can\u2019t just say that I\u2019m in the mood for Canadian food, like you can with any other culture.\u00a0 We cook with the seasons and our moods more.\u00a0 In summer, it wouldn\u2019t cross our minds to make a pot roast because it\u2019s too hot.\u00a0 Eating carrots and turnips in a thick, heavy sauce is not what we are in the mood for.\u00a0 I want fresh salads, and colourful, bright and crunch produce because that\u2019s summer cooking for us.\u00a0 To cook with the seasons is very Canadian.\u00a0 It is truly unique that we have these four distinct seasons and four different ways of cooking.<\/p>\n Thinking more about you what is your favourite thing to bake?<\/strong><\/p>\n I move with the seasons.\u00a0 Right now, I\u2019m all about strawberries and rhubarb.\u00a0 This is where I like to take a base recipe and make the pie.\u00a0 I also love that there is a season ahead to look forward to.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to go crazy with summer desserts all season long, but you know that first brisk evening or weekend that you get in September?\u00a0 All of a sudden, I am going to close the windows and I\u2019m going to bake an apple pie.\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s when I crave roasted chicken and in it goes and you want that convection oven browning that skin so that you can smell it if you baste it.\u00a0 I consider roasted chicken fast food because you put it in the oven and then you go do everything else for 90 minutes and then the chicken is done and it\u2019s perfect. To me, that is more convenience than anything else because you are using the tool, but filling the house with the aromas.\u00a0 You can tell I get a little excited about it [laughs].<\/p>\n The value in getting us to the point where we want to make the food is having the right tools so that we can get onto the activity of making the memories.\u00a0 This is where LG has come in with innovations to their appliances that meet our needs.\u00a0 The survey has said it, the Canada Food Guide has said so \u2013 we are on the cusp of making a wonderful shift and cooking and creating the next generation\u2019s food memories.<\/p>\n You can learn more from Anna Olson on her website<\/a> or follow her on Instagram<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n For more information on LG\u2019s Home Appliances visit their website<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"