This sauce is incredibly versatile. It's used in a whole array of dishes from every day macaroni and cheese to special occasion lasagne. You can even easily increase or decrease the amount according to your needs.

Continuing on the Russian theme, this is a dish we’ve all eaten at least once, probably years ago. The name alone — where it came from, no-one seems to know — makes any home cook feel important. And the taste, no matter what cut of beef you may choose to use (recipes call for everything from yesterday’s prime rib, to filet, to skirt steak — your choice), offers pure rib-sticking comfort.

Yes, my invention from the early 1960s. Who knew Italian cooking would become so popular over the years?

Vancouver food guru Lesley Stowe, who devotes much of her life these days to manufacturing and distributing her beyond-delicious Raincoast Crisps (www.lesleystowe.com ) shares a favourite recipe: It’s an “easy mid-week dinner, or leisurely weekend lunch that’s healthy, sexy and spicy.” Everything you want, says Lesley, in a quick-and-easy pasta dish. This dish screams for a Pinot Grigio from Alto Adige. Say that ten times fast.

Figs are the most underrated fruit of all time, and I will continue to be their greatest fan. They are a good source of potassium, calcium, iron and dietary fibre. Reputed to be Cleopatra’s favourite fruit, figs were also enjoyed daily by the petulant Persian king Xerxes who ate the fruit to remind himself he no longer controlled Greece, the land where figs grew abundantly. The ancient Romans revered the fig tree as sacred and offered the first fruits of the season to the god Bacchus who is often depicted as wearing a crown of fig leaves. Somewhere in time, we lost our connection to this noble fruit. Forget the Newtons and all the other ways in which you’ve grown to hate figs. Try them in a dish with gorgonzola cheese and walnuts. Then fall on your knees: you’ve been converted.

A flavourful recipe adapted from the California Culinary Academy.

Tins of plum tomatoes and sliced mushrooms are the basics for this delicious dish. Good-quality Parmigiana Reggiano lasts a long time — keep some in your fridge for garnishing this and other dishes. You might also want to warm a loaf of garlic bread from the freezer to serve alongside the pasta.

The key to smooth, creamy spaghetti carbonara is to make sure that the heat under the pot has been turned off. The heat from the drained pasta is enough to cook the eggs without scrambling them.

This recipe is a family heirloom. We all make some version of it. New brides in our family get the recipe and a large pasta bowl along with unsolicited and long-winded advice on how to make it. My niece Katie actually wrote a paper on it for school, following its history and its many versions through the family tree. This dish never appears at family gatherings since we all make it at home. But we often talk about how we make it and argue over whose version is best. Unlike the rest of my weight-conscious family, I use an entire pound of bacon, easily making mine the best — or the worst, depending on how you look at it.