Flour power: Anna Olson's kitchen is Fresh
Tanya Linton, National Post Published: Friday, April 11, 2008
Peter J. Thompson / National PostAnna Olson in her kitchen in southwestern Ontario, where her new show, Fresh, launched last month on Food Network Canada, is taped.
There's a lot more than sugar in Anna Olson's kitchen. There's a lot more than sugar in Anna Olson's kitchen. You'd expect the pastry chef, cookbook author,celebrity food personality and host of Food Network Canada's latest culinary adventure, Fresh with Anna Olson, to have a to-die-for kitchen. And she does. It's just not what you'd think. Just like her career that blends writing cookbooks with whipping up creations on television and running a busy bakery in Port Dalhousie, her kitchen is a mish-mash of different styles. There's everything from vintage to modern to industrial - designed with every aspect of her combo-career in mind. "It's definitely not a huge, super expensive, high-end, pre-fab kitchen," says Ms. Olson. "But there's a ton of room for me to test recipes, house all of my baking paraphernalia and display my collections of cookbooks and crockery. And Fresh is shot here, so it works for TV, too!" It's true that a modern-day kitchen is considered the hub of the home, where homework, making meals and daily conversation simmer together to form a delicious family stew, but rarely do average people put such thought and effort into designing our dream kitchens. Usually, we are victims of the previous owner's style or, when designing from scratch, order a kitchen as if we were choosing a burger combo meal at a drive-thru. But that's where Ms. Olson and her chef-husband, Michael, differ. After buying a Victorian home (from 186
on the Welland Canal six years ago, that had been split up into units, they knew they could create the ultimate kitchen - over time. "We lived on the top two floors of the house for two years," Ms. Olson says. "It gave us time to really think about what was important to us in our kitchen." Important to them was a two-deck commercial pizza oven that Mr. Olson scored from the Niagara College cafeteria, where he teaches culinary arts. The oven decks are deceivingly tall and not just for pizza - turkeys and hams slide in effortlessly, not to mention all of the cheesecakes, baked Alaskas and triple-decker layer cakes Ms. Olson has tested over the years for either her bakery or her Food Network show called sugar. Clearly not meant for the average kitchen or struggling home cook, this beast-like oven has diva-like qualities. "It's not like any other appliance, where you plug it in, attach the hood and away you go," she shares. "This 50-year-old clunker needs some getting used to. It has to be directly vented to the outside because there's no hood. I found it difficult at first because as a chef, you know things are done by the aroma wafting through the kitchen. With this oven, you can't smell a thing. My neighbours knock on my door to let me know that my apple pies are done." Along with the design-statement oven, vintage pieces fill the space creating a one-of-a-kind look. "We fell in love with a retro pie fridge that was sitting in a garbage pile outside a famous pie shop in Font Hill. We offered the owners a hundred bucks and although it doesn't work, we use it as our pantry." Once the big items were found, the rest of the "industrial-farmhouse-bistro-kitchen" fell into place. First, they chose a few wall-mounted open shelves, so that all of their accessories are at arms' reach - a design style they lifted from commercial restaurant kitchens. "It's actually easier than you think to keep the shelves clean," explains Ms. Olson. "Working with everything exposed became a habit." They then opted for a two-inch-thick maple butcher block countertop that looks a little bit country with a dash of industrial styling. And to top off the mix-and-match vibe, black-and-white honeycomb mosaic tiles, that look like they were ripped straight from the floor of a café on the Champs Élysées, cover the entire room. "It sounds like a hodge-podge, but we wanted to keep it simple," says Ms. Olson. "We decided not to use a designer. Instead, we remembered all of our favourite parts of the kitchens that we've worked in over the years. The result is definitely eclectic. We tossed all the varying decorating styles into a blender and this is what we poured out." Clearly, those are the words of a chef, because trying to piece together a kitchen that's funky, matches the Victorian farmhouse-style and suits the cooking desires of two chefs is about as easy as whipping together a croquembouche. But, simple and personal it is. After ripping down a few walls and exposing the formerly teensy apartment-size kitchen to the dining room, a plan fell into place. "We entertain a ton, so we wanted to create the open-concept space so that our guests can sit, look in and chat while we cook," she says. "An island was a must." So, what's the key to having two cooks in the kitchen? "Two distinct prep spaces," Ms. Olson says with a laugh. "One side is decked for baking and the other is savoury." But rarely do they stick to their appropriate sweet/savoury corners. After all, the Olsons met in a restaurant kitchen and having been cooking side by side for years - meaning they've learned to dance together and around each other brilliantly. No one is relegated to a specific side of the room. "If Michael wants to bake bread, I say go for it," she says. "I think my hosting sugar made everyone think that all I did was bake, but I'm a trained chef and I love cooking the whole meal." You'll notice full meals on Fresh, where Ms. Olson creates menus with ingredients that are all fresh and local and can be purchased within minutes from her home. Call it down-home cooking Olson-style, complete with visits to her local suppliers followed by cooking segments in her own kitchen. "We didn't change much for the show," she says. "The wall colour is a stronger aqua-teal than before and there might be a few more dishes on the shelves, but it's pretty much the same as it was. And it's just the way I like it."
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