The Charmer: Said Mdahoma

Pastry Chef, Said the Pastry Nerd, Calgary

If one person encapsulates some of the good things that happened during lockdown, it might be this Calgary-based French-Comorian (It's ok, we had to look it up too€”Comoros is a tiny island off Madagascar) doctor of neuroscience who got the baking bug and transformed that nascent passion into a series of videos on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram that are as popular as they are charming. Did he use this growing audience to catapult himself into the influencer sphere? Not a chance: watching Mdahoma dig into a tray of brownies he knows aren€™t done because he can€™t help himself was refreshingly cathartic, and he's just the sort of foodie that helped us keep our collective chins up.

Neal McLennan

Neal McLennan

Neal McLennan is the wine and spirits editor for Vancouver and Western Living magazines, where he susses out the wonderful (and occasionally weird) options for imbibing across Western Canada.