About - Contact Brian Alan Burhoe

"A Graduate of the Holland College Culinary Course, Brian Alan Burhoe has cooked in Atlantic Coast restaurants and institutional kitchens for over 30 years. He is a member of the Canadian Culinary Federation. Brian's articles reflect his interests in food service, Canadian history, imaginative literature and our best friends -- our dogs. His Home Page is A CULINARY MYSTERY TOUR - A Literary Chef. His articles have been printed and reprinted on numerous blogs and websites, including the popular Livestrong.com, NoteCook, New Age Info, Writers-bloc.net, Christiandevotionalsongs.info, Helium, YourCompletePet.com, Dogaround Info, Kissing Cooks, Mastercookingtips.com, NewCulinary.com, Ask Dog Care, Dogsleds.info, Hockeytips.net, NHL-awards.com, Habsfeed.com, ProfessionalHockeyNews.com, Hab.ca, Article Junction, eHow, The Astral News, Life in the Spirit and Eagle Ridge News."  - Suite 101: Online Magazine and Writers' Network

Among Brian's most popular published articles are:

  1. Tips on Being a Great Line Cook

  2. Do You Really Need a Culinary Course & Credentials to be a Chef?

  3. Easy Grilled Teriyaki Chicken Breast Recipe

  4. How to Make Spinach Maria, a Gourmet Side Dish - Origin of Spinach Maria

  5. How Much Ground Beef You Need to Make 50 Hamburgers

  6. British Sea Battles of the 1700's

  7. Rin-tin-tin: The First Hollywood Canine Superstar

  8. The Top 10 Most Popular Dog Breeds

  9. Which Dog Breeds Are Easiest to Train? 

10. How to Become a Canadian Mountie

Well, that sums it up, I guess.

I was born in the foggy old seaport of Saint John, New Brunswick. 

Dad (Albert Chester Burhoe, b. South Brookfield, Nova Scotia) had been a soldier in the Algonquin Regiment, Canadian Army in Holland -- a carpenter before he enlisted.  Mum (Edna Claxton, b. Hull, Yorkshire) was an English war bride.  She grew up on the family canal boat and worked as a bus conductress on the double deckers during the War. 

When I was 4, we moved to Yorkshire, northern England, for four years.  Although I missed Canada -- the deep conifer forests with all the wildlife -- Yorkshire was a fantastic place for a lad.  The calm shining canals.  The wide green fields in summer with swaths of blue everywhere -- the bluebells.   The open woodlands filled with wide shafts of sunlight.  Travelling on double decker busses and steam-driven trains.  To places with names like Ravensthorpe, Huddersfield, Knottingly, Saddleworth, Heckmondwike and the haunting Yorkshire Moors.  Stone buildings.  Old castles.  Old stone churches, abbeys, cathederals -- for some reason I loved the churches more than the castles.  We only visited York Minster Cathederal once, but it seemed as a boy that I had somehow been there before, years earlier.  It was an event that stirred a religious sense that has stayed with me.  Once, we were on the outskirts of Barnsdale Forest and Mum pointed into the dark shadows and said, "Robin Hood's grave is in there.  Your father and I saw it during the War."  While in England, I experienced the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, an event that made me a confirmed Royalist. 

Back in the Dominion of Canada, I grew up in harness racing country northwest of Saint John -- lots of horses, stables, fields and forests.  With friends -- softball, prowling the woods and watching Westerns were our passions.  Sure loved "them old Westerns."

I was reminiscing with my brother, Ray, the other day about boyhood days on the Golden Grove Road, and I said, "Most Saturdays, I used to take the bus into Saint John -- or walk if I didn't have the money.  For 25 cents, I could see the Afternoon Matinee at the Paramount or the Strand Odeon Theatre -- usually Disney or a Western.  Stuff like that.  You may remember old John Thomas and his sidekick Red -- remember, John bought, sold, traded and stabled horses in the barn next door?  An old horse trader in every sense of the word. 

"John and Red were sometimes so drunk or hung over, that Donnie Queen and I had to clean out the barn and tend the horses.  No, I never learned Red's last name -- he lived in the little bunk house next to the barn -- where he kept a worn western saddle and a bull whip.  He seemed like a character out of the Old West. 

"Glen Falls Schoolhouse?  They tore that old brown building down long ago, didn't they?  Funny thing is," I concluded, "I never think of those dear old golden rule days, although I'm sure that I went to school once in a while.  Yes, I must have, because I came home enough times with hands sore from another strapping."

Well, my time served in that institution wasn't a complete loss.  It was in our elementary readers that I discovered the wild animal stories of Charles G D Roberts, my first literary hero.  He was followed, over the next few years, by Grey Owl, Jack London, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Will Henry, Farley Mowat and Edgar Pangborn.

Dad worked for the Provincial Department of Highways.  I used to go over to the Highways yard sometimes to hang out on summer days.  Most of the Provincial workers back then were war veterans.  Dad had been in Holland, the Hochwald Forest and (after being picked off by a German sniper) in Stalag 11B, Fallingbostel.  Another had fought in Normandy.  Other men in Italy and Korea.  They were the nicest bunch of guys I ever knew.

And then we moved to Suburbia, which is no place for a country boy.

My first published work was a Science Fiction short story, "Ornithanthropus," way back in '71 - IF Magazine, Dec, 1971. It was reprinted in a couple Best Science Fiction stories of the Year anthologies. Strange thing is, I continue to get emails from people who vividly remember it. And recently, I had an email from the Rights Center saying they had a client interested in the movie-TV rights. If you're interested in imaginative literature, including my online tale "Someday There Will be Centaurs," Click Here to go to ORNITHANTHROPUS -- Science Fantasy by B Alan Burhoe.

I sold other stories through the 70's, including a yarn in Fantastic Stories that got me in trouble with Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian) fans: "His Last and First Women" in FANTASTIC STORIES/Science Fiction & Fantasy, March, 1974.

My exploration of the common motifs of dreams, mythology and fantasy fiction came out of a long conversation with writer/editor Lin Carter at Detroit Tri-Con in August, 1972.

That fascination with imaginative literature has led to a lifelong interest (and articles) on dreamstudy, Christian mysticism, and modern mysteries.

I've also had a passion since childhood in Northwestern lore, history and fiction: Mounties, huskies, wolves, and the Great Northwoods. If you want to read my story in the Jack London tradition, Click Here to Read the Online Northwestern WOLFBLOOD! 

An owner of dogs like huskies and German shepherds, I've written numerous articles on canine history, training and feeding -- we prepare our shepherd's meals from scratch.  For a history of the Realistic Dog Story, from its creation as a literary form by Charles G D Roberts, its popularization by Jack London to the latest published works, go to my Mountie Dog Stories & More - Evolution of the The Realistic Dog Story.  

This interest has also led to my creation of North-West Mounted Police: Canadian Mounties in History, Literature and Hollywood - This study of the Great Writers of Mountie Fiction and Northwestern Literature has drawn a lot of feedback and links from University and Research sites, including Wikipedia.

My wife, Mary Lee, delivers the rural mail down back country roads for Canada Post.  When she finds the time, she works on her popular Seacoast Folk Art at Etsy.  Our kids, Gregory and Jennifer, get home when they can -- "don't forget to call your mother."

Lately, I've been able to help others with research and writing projects across a number of fictional genres and non-fiction areas (especially culinary) -- editing, ghosting, writing, providing website content, some of it just for the fun of it.

With the RCMP Veteran's Association, I am part of the creative team putting together "SCARLET GLORY: Honouring the Heritage of Canada's Mounted Police" -- a multi-media project created and produced by Mel Shaw of Nashville.  Mel started out as the manager/producer of the Western rock band, THE STAMPEDERS.   He is the Founding President of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and the Juno Awards.   With his wife, Fran, he now runs Mel Shaw Music Platforms, Nashville, Los Angeles, New York and Toronto.  My part in SCARLET GLORY will include podcasts and material about the portrayal of the Mounties in history, literature, pulp fiction and Hollywood.

I am currently writing the first of a projected Historical Mystery series featuring members of the North-West Mounted Police.  And, yes, there's a Culinary Mystery on the back burner.

CULINARY EXPERIENCE:

1977 – Present

Brian Burhoe has cooked in Atlantic Coast restaurants and institutional kitchens for over 30 years, including:

            THE IDLE OARS, North Rustico, Prince Edward Island
            THE LOYALIST INN,  Shelburne, Nova Scotia
            THE GRUB N' GROG, Sable River, Nova Scotia
            SURF LODGE, Lockeport, Nova Scotia 

Graduate of the Holland College Culinary Course, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, 1977.

Received Journeyman Cook Certificate from the Province of Nova Scotia Department of Labour -- Apprenticeship and Tradesman's Qualifications Division, January, 1980.

Member of the Canadian Culinary Federation - CCFCC

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Contact Brian Alan Burhoe

RR1 Lockeport

Nova Scotia, Canada

B0T 1L0

FAVOURITE NOVEL:  I was 18 when I first read Edgar Pangborn's DAVY, which may have been the perfect age to discover Pangborn's gentle, sentimental and oft-tragic worldscape, I don't know.  Standing there in the narrow newspaper, magazine and tobacco store next to the SMT bus terminal on Saint John's King Street, I wasn't at first sure if this book from the paperback rack was worth 75¢.  Not the kind of realistic cover art I usually demanded, even for science fantasies.  But this wasn't  science fantasy.  Wrong Edgar.  The blurbs compared it to HUCKLEBERRY FINN and Fielding's TOM JONES, both of which I loved.  Phrases like "warmth and humor" beckoned me.  Robert A Heinlein was "delighted all the way through."  Standing in the bookstore, I read the author's Note on the copyright page: "The characters in this novel are fictitious in a limited sense -- that is, they won't be born for several hundred years yet."  I was hooked.  And then I read the opening lines: "I'm Davy, who was king for a time.  King of Fools, and that calls for wisdom."  Hooked and reeled in, I began reading the novel on the bus ride home.  I almost missed my stop.

If it was Sir Charles G D Roberts who first showed a young boy the power of the written story (along with Carl Barks, although I didn't know then who was writing those Disney comics I practically learned to read by) -- then it was the two Edgars who informed a young man what the written story can achieve: Burroughs, the power of imagination; and Pangborn, the Humanity.