Inside the kitchen of cookbook author, stylist and TV personality Jason Skrobar

Writing a cookbook wasn’t an obvious pivot for Jason Skrobar, who grew up in what he emphatically calls “the armpit of Ontario,” better known as Windsor. He spent his first 15 years in Toronto working a series of food industry jobs, starting as a dishwasher and then a barista at the Starbucks across from Much Music. “I’d serve the VJs and think, How cool would it be to work in that building? And now I do,” he says. “It’s very surreal.” In 2010, he got a gig as a culinary PA for the CBC—essentially an air-traffic controller if bowls of cake dough were airplanes—which launched his career as a food stylist, recipe developer and eventual TV personality. These days, Skrobar regularly appears on CTV’s Your Morning, Breakfast Television, The Morning Show and The Good Stuff With Mary Berg.

Related: Inside the kitchen of Danny McCallum, head chef at Jacob’s and Co. Steakhouse

Over the course of his food-styling career, Skrobar has often worked with cookbook authors. He was constantly getting asked when he was going to write his own book. Eventually, he was inspired by his long-standing tradition of making epic sandwiches for friends. Thus was born The Book of Sandwiches, which has zipped up Canadian bestseller lists and was recently named one of Indigo’s top 10 cookbooks of the year. It highlights the humble sandwich, which, in Skrobar’s hands, isn’t all that humble. It’s broken up into chapters like “Classics,” “Breakfast” and “Chic” (think bougie multi-step offerings like a soft-shell crab sandwich), with a surprising section on dessert sandwiches (if you’ve never thought to make a crème brûlée cookie sandwich, now is the time).

Skrobar does most of the cooking and baking for on-air gigs in the small kitchen of his one-bedroom apartment in Parkdale. His fridge is a smorgasbord of prep and leftovers from whatever he’s been styling that week. There’s also often some simple grilled chicken and rice or a healthy bowl for him to gobble when he gets home from the gym or take to set to avoid the siren song of the craft services table.

The green Le Creuset Dutch oven up top is currently filled with bone broth made using leftovers from weeks of Thanksgiving segments. He snagged it at a prop sale when In the Kitchen With Stefano Faita, a CBC show he worked on, was cancelled in 2014. He’s used it almost every day since.

Skrobar spends a lot of time working out, and these seasoned eggs are a gift from one of his fellow protein-obsessed gym pals. He keeps them, plus a large bowl of fresh eggs, in his fridge at all times. “I love eggs,” he says. “I probably eat three every day.”

He’s been known to wax poetic about his impressive condiment collection (do not diss regular mustard in his presence). He’s particularly obsessed with Toronto-based Zing’s Hakka-ish chili crisp. “At the end of a long week, all I want to eat is a Pizzeria Libretto Neapolitan pizza with this hot honey chili crisp,” he says.

Related: Inside the kitchen of Eden Grinshpan, host of Top Chef Canada

Grocery shopping is an almost daily occurrence in Skrobar’s professional life. While he loves hitting Kensington Market for seafood (Hooked) or spices (Carlos’ House of Spice), his favourite spot is Fiesta Farms. He doesn’t own a car, so making multiple stops, especially after a long day of shooting (he’s usually on set by 5:30 a.m.), isn’t in the cards. “I love Fiesta because I can get everything in one go,” he says. “I’m never worried I won’t be able to find something I need.”

He can never have enough parmesan. Like, ever.

Skrobar’s small freezer is stuffed with nuts (protein, people!) and his favourite frozen pizza from Libretto.

In an attempt to offset a serious caffeine habit (try getting up at 4:30 a.m. for work without it), Skrobar brews his own iced hibiscus tea.

Skrobar’s pantry—which consists of meticulously organized open metal shelves from Home Depot—is where he keeps all his staples, as well as his dishes, small kitchen appliances and some of his plant babies. He developed a green thumb during the pandemic, and now his apartment is overflowing with plants.

That’s a lot of spices—and the stacks go four levels back. Skrobar is a man who lives and dies by his label maker. The rainbow mugs are from Snaffle & Mane in Haliburton.

The sprinkle collection is equally impressive. Skrobar sources most of his baking ingredients from McCall’s in Mississauga.

Skrobar brought this penis-shaped pasta back from Florence, but he hasn’t cooked with it yet. “I kind of like it just sitting there,” he says.

The bowl of citrus and the fresh flowers are a constant presence on his stand-alone prep counter. “This sounds really cheesy, but ever since I moved to Toronto, I decided I always had to have them,” he says. The bowl was his grandmother’s. “It reminds me of growing up.”

Skrobar’s dad, who passed away several years ago, was Slovenian, and in somewhat unusual fashion for the 1980s, he did a lot of the cooking in the Skrobar home. Pumpkin seed oil is a popular ingredient in Slovenia (“They use it the way Italians use balsamic vinegar”), and Skrobar inherited a taste for it. He uses it regularly as part of salad dressings or as a dip for bread.

Skrobar lucked out when he moved into his apartment: this shelf was already built in, and it became a perfect home for his cookbook collection. He worked on the promotional tours for many of the books, including Cook With Confidence by Dennis Prescott, Chuck’s Home Cooking by Chuck Hughes and Don’t Worry, Just Cook by Anna Rupert and Bonnie Stern.

The books Skrobar returns to again and again include Andy Baraghani’s The Cook You Want to Be and Tara O’Brady’s Seven Spoons. His latest addition is Nature’s Candy by Camilla Wynne, which is all about cooking and baking with candied fruit.

Skrobar keeps his precious knives close at hand on this magnetic strip—except when he’s getting them sharpened at Tosho Knife Arts. “It’s the only place I trust,” he says.

This Christian Dior bag—a gift from Sébastien Dubois-Didcock, the Paris-based photographer (and ex-Torontonian) who shot The Book of Sandwiches—gets used every day for groceries. “I love it because it’s pink, but also it’s really big and can carry a lot,” says Skrobar.

Dubois-Didock also had this “Sandwich Daddy” hat made for Skrobar to wear at his book launch.

And here’s the chef in action, making “My Perfect Sandwich” from his book (a tomato sandwich with sun-dried tomato mayo).