Totally Scallops

In the course of my work, I sometimes get to stay at really nice hotels like the Fairmont Chateau Laurier in Ottawa. We’re talkin’ personal service, great food and a centre-of-the-world piano bar I want to live in forever. Anyway, the best thing about these places is that I get to meet interesting people.

I’ve known Judy Eberspaecher and her husband Alex for years. They’re travel writers. They make a living exploring exotic locations around the world and writing about them. Nice gig. I usually just sit there and listen as they take turns stretching my imagination with adventurous tales.

I didn’t know she was the high priestess of the scallop, the matriarch of the mollusc, the undisputed authority on my favourite edible bivalve! During her travels all these years she’s been collecting recipes for preparing scallops. Judy is from Nova Scotia, so she knows what she’s talking about. She takes a mean picture too, and her recipes are all illustrated with delicious photographs.

I have a mild scallop fetish myself. Once in a while I need to order up a big plate of them at Rodney’s in Toronto. When I’m in Canada’s maritime provinces, I eat them by the bagful. Come to think of it, if you know a great place to get scallops, let me know in the “comments” below.

Totally Scallops is almost as much a travel book as it is a cookbook. It’s a work of passion by a person who obviously loves her subject. Judy won the Best Fish & Seafood Canada Award from the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards (Madrid). Totally Scallops also placed 4th at the Paris Cookbook Fair for the Best Fish and Seafood Cookbook in the World. You can order a copy online at EberImage.ca Way to go Judy. I’m looking forward to the next time we meet.