Gwendolyn Richards

Gwendolyn Richards is a food writer, photographer and the blogger behind Patent and the Pantry.

Her food writing has appeared in the Calgary Herald and newspapers across the country, as well as Avenue Magazine in Calgary. In addition to writing about food trends, reviewing cookbooks and sharing recipes in print, she is occasionally spotted on television cooking with morning news hosts or eating things like steak and wings, which, she contends, are excellent breakfast foods, even at 7:30 a.m.

She has always felt at home in the kitchen and was greatly influenced by her grandfather’s passion for cooking, learning at his side how to make fresh pasta and pesto. She translated that enthusiasm for food into her blog where she continues to chronicle her love of cooking, baking, eating while traveling and very shiny shoes.

A former cop reporter, Richards traded covering crime and calamity for cake and crockpots after writing a series of monthly columns based on her blog, starting with a quest to find the best burger in southern Alberta that amounted to four days of eating a total of five beef patties on buns. She regrets nothing, except that there wasn’t enough time for more burgers.

She likes vintage cocktails – especially a well-done Bourbon Old-Fashioned or Sour – any kind of lemon dessert and believes a fantastic burger is one of the most perfect foods in the world. An excellent night is when she enjoys all three of those things while wearing patent, peep-toe high heels. Red, of course.

Visit Gwendolyn's blog