I grew up in a Ukrainian family (our basic food groups: butter, sour cream and bacon) where we always had an old green coffee mug sitting beside the kitchen sink, into which we would pour the morning’s bacon grease to sit and congeal.

During the day, we would dip into the bacon fat to fry up onions or anything else that needed frying for lunch or dinner.

That coffee cup NEVER went into the fridge! It would just get topped up regularly and used regularly. Who knows what the very bottom of that green coffee cup held? Eeee-yuck….

It’s a wonder all seven of us survived!

Alas, since my heart attack last year, my days of storing bacon fat (in the fridge or elsewhere) are long gone. My culinary efforts now lean to adapting my favourite old family recipes into new ‘heart-smart’ ones that are low-salt, low-fat and high-fibre.

My Ukrainian Baba would be spinning in her grave at all this healthy eating!

But I have a sweet tooth rather than a salty tooth, so maybe I’m biased!