Jan Thalheimer designer, art director
Jan Thalheimer is an award-winning CGD-certified designer (Society of Graphic Designers of Canada) and owner of Bossanova Communications. “Since I established it in 1990, Bossanova has been both my pride and my bane. Like any small business, my client list is wide and varied, and I strive to produce the best quality I can for all comers. Working with Mary, in the beginning on City Palate, and now on The Tomato, continues to be one of the bright spots. Favourite downtime pastimes include travel (anywhere and everywhere) painting pictures (badly) reading (voraciously) and watching TV (really, I love it). ”
Gunnar Blodgett, web guru
Gunnar is pleased he’s been accepted into the Tomatosphere and privileged to work with Mary and Janice. In addition to helping thetomato.ca to (among other things) better organize amazing recipes, Gunnar is also a Canadian Online Publishing Awards judge and the official photographer for Camino Edmonton. When not developing or judging websites, he’s exploring the outdoors and capturing wildlife with his trusty Nikon. Gunnar was chuffed to be welcomed to the Fringe Multimedia Team this year.
Shauna Faragini, copy editor
Shauna made the pivot from corporate life to Edmonton’s food scene long before Covid sent so many people home from the office. When she’s not fact checking The Tomato, she might be helping a few local shops with staff shortages. Or you can find her testing chef recipes and new projects to feed friends and family.
Gerry Rasmussen, Illustrations
Contributing Writers
Peter Bailey aka the Beer guy
Peter Bailey has always been that beer guy, bringing Tuborg to bush parties in the 80s, foisting homebrew on you in the 90s and asking, “what local beer do you have?” of Every Single Bar And Restaurant visited in the 2000s. A librarian by trade, Peter considers book-learning the best learning, and a 1993 Christmas gift of Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion started him on the path of beer education and investigation. Peter has enjoyed drinking craft beer and meeting the people of craft beer in every Canadian province, over half the American states and across Europe.
Mary Bailey, publisher, editor-in-chief
Mary writes about food and drink. She is a monthly guest on Global Edmonton TV Morning News, her work has appeared in various regional and national publications and she co-authored (with Judy Schultz) two best-selling books on Alberta food: The Food Lover’s Trail Guide to Alberta, Volumes I & II. She is also a national Canada’s Kitchen Party/Canadian Culinary Championships judge, a 2015 Global Woman of Vision, and was honoured with the GALA (Growing Alberta Leadership Award) for community spirit in 2007. She holds the Wines and Spirits Trust (WSET) Diploma and is a certified sommelier (International Sommelier Guild). Mary started The Tomato (then called City Palate Edmonton) in 1996. Since then, The Tomato has profiled the unique people in Alberta’s food scene (chefs, farmers, ranchers, food producers, restaurateurs, wine people, artisans, brewers, distillers) and helped food and drink lovers make tasty dinners, drink delicious wines and cocktails and find the best foodstuffs around town.