On Wednesday September 11, 2024, our family and Canada’s food industry lost a bright and shining light. Gay Cook, born Grace Helen Morrison, passed away peacefully in hospital with her kids by her side. Vibrant until the end, in the moment of her passing, the world suddenly got a little bit quieter.
At 93, Gay remained her cheerful, merry self, her bright eyes widening with happiness around her favourite things – her kids, grandkids, family, friends, dogs, cups of tea, favourite cookies to have with said tea, the lake at her cottage, onion sandwiches, going barefoot in her garden, pulling weeds and savouring conversations about the quality of a dish or the bouquet of a wine.
Born November 8th, 1930, in her family home in Ottawa, Gay grew up in a family steeped in the world of Canadian food. Her parents were the late Margaret Jane Kelly Cotter, consummate host, gardener and irreverent, loving grandmother and the late Cecil Morrison, founder of Morrison Lamothe, the business that the family still operates today.
The youngest of the legendary Morrison sisters, Gay attended nearby Devonshire, Connaught, and Glebe schools, graduating as the Second World War was ending. Like her older sisters, Jean Pigott and Marguerite (Grete) Hale, as a teen, Gay worked in the catering division of the family business. After her 1953 graduation from Ryerson, in Hotel Resort and Restaurant Administration, Gay worked in kitchens across Europe and South America, and she went on to run commercial kitchens, training new arrivals throughout. On her many travels, cupid struck.
Gay found her lifetime love in Robert (Bob) Alexander Cook of Edmonton, Alberta. They married on August 20, 1966, at Parkdale United Church in Ottawa and celebrated in grand style at the family home. Gay and Bob continued to travel throughout their marriage, living in Washington DC, Tucson, Arizona, Toronto and Morrisburg, Ontario. Son Donald Robert Cook was born in 1969, and daughter Kelly Ann Margaret Cook (Kubrick) followed in 1970.
Gay was an awesome mom who taught her kids with every breath and every action – we cooked and baked at her elbow, we camped and canoed with her and our Dad, we learned to ski and skate with them, and we built a log cabin with them both. A working Mom who believed in breakfast, she also fed us lunch daily through school years, engaged us during home cooked dinners, tended to extraordinary gardens, trained our many pets, encouraged our interests, and fostered our independence.
Her love and partnership with our Dad never wavered. They were a united front who revelled in embarrassing their teenagers with expressions of affection. They threw countless dinner parties, teaching us to value friends, and threw excellent birthday parties for us. We were the only kids in our neighbourhood who got Baked Alaska as their birthday cake.
Gay did all that while also blazing trails in her professional world of food. She joked constantly she’d won a life lottery there; “I married my husband for love, but it’s been good for business too!” Throughout their 28 year marriage and through the soul-tearing loss of her beloved Bob to cancer in 1994, we watched her embrace her food calling with enthusiasm and an always open-heart.
She consulted for cookware companies, freelanced for magazines like Gourmet and Epicuria, wrote cookbooks, made appearances on TV and radio cooking shows, ran her own cooking schools, launched her Mrs. Cook’s Foods business, evolving into a food journalist and restaurant critic, with her own food column. A multi-decade member of the Culinary Federation, she served on culinary advisory committees and councils for Algonquin College, Savour Ottawa, Canadensis, Canada’s future National Botanical Garden, and was a founding director and a Governor of the National Capital Sommelier Guild.
A food writer for over a decade with the Ottawa Sun, she then penned her weekly “Taste of the Town” column with the Ottawa Citizen for nine years, retiring at 80. Her hundreds of columns encouraged everyone in Ottawa who had a food or wine offering to share. Gay connected with everyone – chefs, cooks, restauranteurs, farmers, artisans, caterers, markets, shops, stores, B&Bs and hotels, wineries, and food experiences. If you were out there trying to make a go in food, Gay wanted to know about you and wanted to share your creations with, and for you.
In 2000, her decades of experience, knowledge, culinary beliefs, as well as her best cooking tips culminated in the publication of her cookbook “Mrs. Cook’s Kitchen, Basics and Beyond”. Her goal was to “help make the timid cook a little bolder and the experienced cook more adventurous.” Rich with information yet accessible, it has more than survived the test of time. If you are lucky enough to have a copy, it is likely you still refer to it to this day. Our entire family certainly does, and we regularly get reports on which recipe is the favourite in peoples’ homes.
For decades, her voice resonated across the National Capital region. Gay championed fresh, local ingredients, and its producers. She encouraged chefs, caterers, and restaurants to reach out to local farmers, who responded with enthusiasm. She believed in inspiring all to be more flavourful in our creations and inventive with our menus.
Gay was a tremendous believer in Ottawa’s food community. We were privileged to watch her, consistently and repeatedly, encourage, not criticize, the larger industry. She listened to people’s troubles and challenged the industry to rise to its potential. It broke her heart to watch the devasting impact of COVID on her beloved industry.
Gay also never shifted in her position that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Unscientifically, her kids believe that 100% of all people Gay ever met, found themselves asked, “What did you eat for breakfast today?” Her question has been reported to us many, many times as people ran into our Mom around town.
Throughout her life, Gay’s love shone ever bright for her family. Beloved by her Bob, her sisters and parents, her playful self was outright adored by her grandkids and much loved by her nieces and nephews, her great nieces and nephews and great grandkids. She embodied the mischievous nature of her mother, innocently turning garden hoses on you without warning, but ever generous in offering you the food she had in front of her.
In 2005 for her seventy-fifth birthday, her family and friends gleefully surprised her with the endowment of the Gay Cook Bursary, in appreciation and recognition of her enthusiasm for and contribution to the Canadian Food industry. It is awarded annually to deserving Algonquin College culinary school students who exhibit the ability to work with others, inspire cooperation and inclusion and share learning.
She will be greatly missed. May her merry, joyful voice echo in your hearts and minds for decades to come. We love you, Mom.
For those wishing to honour her memory, please consider directing a donation to the Gay Cook Bursary fund within the Algonquin College School of Hospitality and Tourism.
A Visitation with the family will be held on Tuesday, September 24th, 2024, from 5pm – 8pm EST at Beechwood, Funeral, Cemetery and Cremation Services (280 Beechwood Avenue, Ottawa).
A Celebration of Gay's life will be held on Wednesday, September 25th, 2024, at 3pm, with a reception to follow.
For those unable to join us in person for the celebration, we invite you to attend via live-stream.
Cook Family
I was saddened to hear of the passing of Gay. I remember Gay, always walking into the Preston St, Bank of Nova Scotia with a big smile and greeting everyone. She had such a positive disposition.
One of my favourite customers for over 30 years.
My deepest condolences to the family.
“When you lose someone you love their memory becomes a treasure”
RIP Gay 🙏