We have making soups and sauces from scratch down, or at least we’re on our way. It’s time to move on to cheese.

Ella Kinloch makes it easy with her mozzarella cheese making kit ($29.95). The box comes with enough citric acid, vegetable rennet tablets, salt cloth, cheesecloth and instructions to create 30 batches of mozzarella. With a little practice you’ll have cheese in 30 minutes with leftover whey to make ricotta. A poutine kit including gravy mix is also available and kits for blue cheese, Brie and Gouda are on their way.

If you prefer to start your cheese making surrounded by your friends book a cheese night with a hands on lesson for up to 10 people ($40 per person).

The things we’ll do for fresh ingredients. —Jaelyn Molyneux

www.makecheese.ca

Everybody has go-to recipe, that one fail-proof dish that will impress at a potluck and have your pals asking how you pulled it off.

Now more than 200 of those delicious dishes are being shared in Club Club’s Community Cookbook. The three crafty editors took the concept of collaboration to the people asking for recipe submissions from foodie friends, professional chefs and perfect strangers. After nine months of collecting, the recipes of 110 contributors were put together in one coil bound book that covers all the meal bases from roasted radishes and chiffon cakes to bourbon lemonade and barbecued ribs.

If ever there was an excuse for a kitchen party. —Jaelyn Molyneux

$16 at www.club-club.tumblr.com

Tired of that drab old salad?  Give it a whole new lease on life with Nonna Pia's Balsamic Reductions.

Like every great balsamic, the story of Nonna Pia’s vinegar begins in Modena, Italy where it’s cultivated. But once it arrives to Whistler, B.C., it's aged for six years, and then slow-cooked for hours while infused with fruits like figs and strawberries, herbs and all things delectable through the process. And Nonna Pia herself? She is the family’s matriarch and culinary inspiration behind the recipes.

Oh, la dolce vita! —Anya Georgijevic

Order online here; for a list of retailers, click here.

The presents are wrapped, the cards sent out and you’re set for Santa. But sadly, cookies and milk won’t do for the rest of the gang.

This holiday, give yourself a kitchen break and grab a turkey dinner to go from The Main Dish.

Order by tomorrow and pick-up by Christmas Eve, and Santa will have nothing on you as you feast on roasted turkey breast, vegetables, cheddar and garlic mashed potatoes, herb stuffing, house-made gravy and cinnamon orange cranberry sauce ($14.99).

Bon appétit.

The Main Dish, 903 General Ave. NE, Calgary, 403-265-3474, www.tmdish.com

Sure your kids have tried to convince you that candy is the fifth food group.

But in order to stave off a Hallowe'en dinner of Smarties and Twizzlers (with the attendant sugar crash two hours later) we suggest filling the kids up with these ghost-shaped stuffed pastas called sacchetti, tossed with lemon zest, olive oil, parmesan and fried capers.

Boo!

In Vancouver at Bosa Foods and Italian grocery stores nationwide.

If your feasts are lacking in flavour, it’s time to ditch the spice rack you bought when you first moved out, and start fresh.

From the Calgary Farmers’ Market to Ramsay, The Silk Road Spice Merchant just opened its first shop.

Specializing in whole and ground spices, herbs, chiles, seasonings and handmade blends from around the world, the shop is stocked with jar upon jar of lovely concoctions.

Pick up some Bow River Fish Blend (from $5.49) for tonight’s trout or add a touch of lavender to poultry or potatoes with the Herbes de Provence (from $4.49). Bakers need only the Pumpkin Pie Spice (from $5.49) for pies or carrot or zucchini breads. The experts even suggest adding a pinch to squash-based soups.

That’s what we call a pantry makeover.

The Silk Road Spice Merchant, 2010A 11th St. SE, Calgary, www.silkroadspices.ca

We love French cookware company Le Creuset because its cast iron wares are indestructible and oh-so-pretty.

It boasts over 70 cool colours like Elysee yellow, Cherry red and its just-launched Cassis, a regal shade of purple that’s right on point with fall fashion. Collect the entire enameled set including the Round French Oven (from $255) and Iron Handle Skillet ($175), or mix and match with classic hues like Kiwi or Dijon.

Now our kitchen will be aflame with colour (as opposed to actual flames, we hope).

For retail locations, click here.

After incessantly being asked what she makes for dinner, Calgary-based journalist and cookbook author Julie Van Rosendaal did what any respectable food writer would do these days: she started a blog. 

Dinner with Julie is a mix of simple recipes, last-minute dinner ideas (think: hummus-and-chicken wraps) and fun family anecdotes. The most popular search, “leg of lamb in a slow cooker,” results in a handful of choices including the most recent incarnation with garlic and rosemary (pictured) but also reveals Van Rosendaal’s determination to resurrect the Sunday family dinner.

Next time someone asks where you got that recipe, tell her your friend Julie passed it on.

www.dinnerwithjulie.com

Resolution #4: Throw away the take-out menus and cook more often.

In comes Kitchen Scraps ($29.95) by Calgarian Pierre A. Lamielle, an illustrator who studied at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. Filled with simple recipes accompanied by Lamielle’s Burton-esque drawings, this kitchen helper is broken into four sections: “Food You Eat With a Spoon,” “Food You Eat With a Fork,” “Food You Eat With a Forkenknife,” and “Food You Eat With a Hand” and includes cleverly named recipes like  “Vampire Slayer’s Garlic-Laced Chicken,” and one of Lamielle’s favourites, “Snails in the Garden” (deep friend escargots in a salad).

At Amazon.ca.

In a perfect world, our personal chef would create every meal and we’d have a catering team on hand for entertaining.

That culinary dream just got a little closer with new store CRMR At Home. Known for its three mountain lodges, the Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts (CRMR) group also includes four Calgary restaurants.

The specialty store offers sauces, stocks, meat pies, breads, pastries and other items from the CRMR restaurants. Think: Cilantro’s famous gorgonzola and pear pizza and the restaurant’s divine mussel sauce, Divino’s fig jam and CRMR elk and buffalo. High-end Italian glassware, kitchenware and Global knives are also on-hand.

As for that entertaining, the store also provides catering services.  

Now sit back and let someone else do the work.

CRMR At Home, 330 17th Ave. SW, Calgary, 403-532 0241, www.crmr.com/athome