This year, a tropical holiday may not be in the cards for you, and that’s okay! Who needs a flight out of YQT when you can find that great escape right in your own kitchen?

Fondue isn’t hurried, and that’s the point: it’s food designed to slow things down and bring people together around the table, weird bits and all.

Enter Ciorbă Rădăuțeană (say: “CHOR-buh ruh-dah-oo-TSEH-ah-nah”). A creamy chicken (or turkey) soup made with shredded meat, blended veggies, and a splash of white wine vinegar, it’s perfect for being snowed in during Alberta clippers, polar vortexes, and other ridiculous January weather.

With the busy holiday season about to clobber us, it’s the perfect time to treat yourself to some new appie recipes, whether you’re toting them to a friend’s or staying in for a cosy night. These two are easy, tasty, and tick all the aforementioned boxes.

Tossed with chicken and potatoes on a sheet pan, this za'atar-y dinner is absolutely one to try this week. I’m not even a potato person, but this dish is the George Costanza of dinners, telling a zinger and leaving, but without the awkward pause.

Pumpkin pie baked oatmeal is where dessert loaf meets breakfast oats. It’s serving pumpkin spice comfort and giving main character breakfast energy. Baked oats are also a meal prep game-changer. Fall is busy, so make a pan on the weekend, and you’ve got breakfast in the bag all week.

Here is a tomato–zucchini tart featuring summer produce and a good amount of Parmesan. If you garden around here, chances are you’ve got more zucchini and tomatoes than you know what to do with—and the neighbours have stopped appreciating “surprise” porch deliveries. This is an easy, good-looking way to use them up.

One of the foods Bob makes superbly is Finnish salt fish, or suolakala (pronounced: soo-la-ka-la); it’s a staple at any family gathering. Similar to Swedish gravlax, suolakala is cured fish, flavoured primarily with salt, dill, and vodka or gin, served on rye bread and sprinkled with green onion.