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Scroll the latest local reporting. Letters, editorials and columns now live in their own reader sections.

The Long Way Is the Point

There are days when my mind wanders. There are days when, like I know it is for many, that feeling of anxiety seems to accompany my every move. There are bad days and there are good days, and there is also the reality of life and the challe

Giulio Piccioli · Dec 18, 2025

Islands Cuisine

Capital “F” Fun By Tony Ravioli

“What do you and Giulio do for fun? And I mean capital ‘F’ Fun, not just everyday fun?” asked our friend Bobbi Lee to my wife last winter. Over the following months, we seemed to often return to that same question, amongst each other and al

Giulio Piccioli · Sep 28, 2025

Islands Cuisine

Giovanni’s Trattoria

In 2003, I found myself in London, Ontario, working in a little bistro called the Green Tomato. I was 23 years old, with little experience and a large enough ego that had me believe I was qualified to run a kitchen. And after the chef who h

Giulio Piccioli · Apr 13, 2025

Islands Cuisine

My first business

I was maybe 13 years old when I started my first business. I spent most of the summer of 1990 playing soccer on the beach and dreaming of Italy winning the World Cup. August was the hottest of the summer months, and all I really wanted was

Giulio Piccioli · Feb 23, 2025

Islands Cuisine

L'Osteria del Mare

I have enjoyed writing for most of my life. While still living in Italy, I was planning to study journalism, until a beautiful French Canadian woman seduced me back to Canada to start a new life. From time to time, I would return to journal

Giulio Piccioli · Jan 18, 2025

Islands Cuisine

Mapi’s Chocolate Cake

So many thoughts fill my head as I say my final goodbyes to family and friends during my recent visit home for my father’s 91st birthday: thoughts of war and the indelible memory it left in my father’s mind; thoughts of playing soccer in th

Giulio Piccioli · Dec 19, 2024

Islands Cuisine

Carlo's peppers

There is a story Carlo Petrini shares at the very beginning of his famous book, Slow Food Nation, that I often think about. Carlo is travelling through Piemonte—the beautiful region in northeast Italy famous for its incredible culinary hist

Giulio Piccioli · Oct 10, 2024

Islands Cuisine

Zucchini pasta, of course

I had other plans for this week’s column, but they all got sort of hijacked by the reality that we all have a lot of zucchinis at this time of the year. Abundant and usually free (as are very few things in life), zucchinis manage to be chea

Giulio Piccioli · Sep 12, 2024

Islands Cuisine

On eating trees

While prepping one of our most popular desserts — the now iconic Spruce Tip Key Lime Pie — I finally exhausted our coveted stockpile of frozen spruce tips from the previous year. But I was prepared. A freshly frozen batch from this year’s p

Giulio Piccioli · Jun 21, 2024