This month we feature Edmonton based, Valerie Lugonja of a canadianfoodie.com.  Valerie shares her thoughts on eating local, clean foods as well as her scientific approach to cooking. 1) Who taught you how to cook? My mother set an incredible example for me in our home about the importance of family time and the value of a delicious evening meal shared by all around a table. Though she did not teach me how to cook, she did let me play in the kitchen with recipes and food experiments. My grandmother taught me how to garden and to preserve. I am a self taught cook, for the most part. I read, I practice, I fail, I learn. I love to be shown by someone whose food I admire, and when I can, I learn that way. I believe in buying local and preparing food for my family from scratch as much as possible. I have attended classes at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and at The Bertinet Cookery School in Bath UK to hone my skills. I will continue to take cooking classes as I travel because I believe that food preparation is an inherent aspect within every culture and I love learning about ethnic practices. As Canada is a multicultural country, I appreciate the learning available to me to continue to build these skills from my neighbours, colleagues, and friends. 2) Why is the Slow Food movement important to you? I believe it is critical to teach our young and their parents the importance of eating good, clean, local and fair food. It is important for them to understand where their food comes from, what the food production process is (farm wise) to enable a strong appreciation and intrinsic value for the food on their plate, daily. They must learn about taste and how to cook! The Slow Food movement works to celebrate and support local producers of food. Without consistent, careful and ongoing education and opportunities to learn and to participate in, the future for the planet and our personal health is bleak. I am driven and so enthusiastic and excited about getting back to the basics which is not reading, writing and arithmetic; it is growing, and sharing and cooking and eating delicious, nutritious food. 3) What is your favourite thing to make for friends and family? Whatever is in season, fresh and simple. That is so exciting for me. Fresh and local food is a celebration on a plate every day! There is nothing like a grass fed prime rib of beef stuffed with slices of garlic and topped with Montreal Steak Spice roasted to perfection in my Grandmother's enamel roaster on a Sunday afternoon. The aroma is intoxicating. This is served with homemade buns, deep dark beefy gravy, mashed potatoes, a variety of freshly steamed seasonal vegetables, and accompanied by the quintessential homemade apple pie. In the Spring, this is accompanied by a salad of new leaf lettuce from our garden with the family's traditional sweet and sour cream and vinegar dressing. Now, that is Alberta! 4) You describe yourself as "part mad scientist" in the kitchen. Which dishes show the mad scientist side of you? I must say that I do fail a lot in my kitchen, even now, as a seasoned home cook. That is because I am consistently working to try new ideas and to create recipes  and food that excites me. One example of this would be my recently self rendered leaf pastry and the follow-up tasting of pastry made with it compared to the home rendered leaf pastry of a friend (fat rendered from a different farm pig) and the standard Tenderflake lard. That is the mad scientist in me, as well as the fact that I also embrace new technology in my cooking practices. I believe in optimizing the flavour and texture of beautiful food in every way I know and I have recently begun working with water ovens, or sous vide cooking, which is often found under the umbrella of molecular gastronomy. I use it to do very basic thoughtful food preparation. 5) What is the most memorable thing you've eaten? There are so many food memories and one is not standing out other than the incredible flavours of the heirloom tomatoes I grow myself picked fresh from my yard garden combined with some fresh garden basil, a sparkle of salt, crushed garlic from Sundog Organic Farm (just outside of Edmonton) and some SmokyVally Chevre. Now that is incredible. In a nutshell, I am a Canadian interested in maintaining and passing on the traditions of my 7 generation Canadian family as well as learning the food traditions and practice of others.