Cook This: 3 recipes from Mary's Comfort Classics, including pickle dip - National Post
Clockwise from top left: Mary Berg, cheddar Ritz chicken, tall 'n' tasty cake, and pickle dip. PHOTOS BY KYLA ZANARDIArticle contentOur cookbook of the week is Mary’s Comfort Classics by Mary Berg.
Jump to the recipes: pickle dip, cheddar Ritz chicken and tall ‘n’ tasty cake.
“Food has always been comfort for me,” says cookbook author and TV host Mary Berg. “Whether you’ve had a great day, a bad day, life is handing you a bunch of malarkey, food is kind of the one thing, every single day, that you can get right. And even if it goes wrong, you can still fix it — or, like, have a chocolate bar.”
Comfort has been a consistent theme for Berg — after all, it’s the subject of the lengthiest and longest-living entry in her Notes app. Her new cookbook, Mary’s Comfort Classics (Appetite by Random House, 2026), made it tangible.
While the definition of comfort food is far from universal, its soothing presence in our lives is, says Berg. Mary’s Comfort Classics is her fourth book, and she’s glad she wrote it at this point in her career. There are plenty of cheesy carbs — and a chapter called “Starch City” — but Berg felt free to widen her definition beyond the North American comfort staples. She jokes that she can spin any recipe into a comfort recipe.
“(If I’d written the book earlier), I think I wouldn’t have had the confidence to attempt to convince readers that a salad can be comforting, and a big old pile of vegetables can be super-stinking comforting. And I’m really happy that that’s where it all landed. It feels like it’s the most full version of where I am right now.”
Comfort can mean butter tart croissants, Welsh rarebit — “a.k.a. cheesy toast” — and pickle dip, but it could also signify having to make fewer decisions in a day, Berg highlights. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re doing. Life is really hard, and all the things that are supposed to make it easier seem to not make it easier. So, I want to be able to eliminate steps. Be the pal in the kitchen.”
Mary’s Comfort Classics is Mary Berg’s fourth cookbook. Photo by Appetite by Random HouseArticle contentBerg’s culinary career kicked off after winning Season 3 of MasterChef Canada in 2016. Even as a student, well before she was developing recipes and became the host of The Good Stuff with Mary Berg and a judge on the show she won a decade ago, Berg says she experienced decision fatigue.
