If you grew up in Canada in the nineties, please tell me that you remember this man. The Urban Peasant was a Canadian cooking show starring James Barber and it aired on CBC (and also aired in some states on TLC, I'm told). This was the first cooking show I'd ever seen (this was long before the Food Network) and I loved it dearly. Why? I don't know, maybe 'cause this man was GENTLE AS HELL! And so likable. And everything he made looked deLIGHTful.

I was thinking about him the other day when I saw a man on the street who looked exactly like him, so when I got home I Googled him and found his website. A ton of his recipes can be found there, as well as a DVD of some of the episodes. Can't believe that I forgot about this food pioneer. What a fine man.

(Also, that man on the street was not James Barber. The internet tells me he's quite dead.)