If you and your spouse owned a successful bed and breakfast, then decided to expand your business by opening a restaurant, the next step, it would seem, would be to look for a chef. That's what most people would do…but Dianna Linder is not most people.

At age 47, Dianna embarked on a new adventure: an avid home cook, she decided to become the head chef at her own restaurant. She possessed a lot of practical skills but wanted to learn the professional skills also needed, so she enrolled in The Culinary Institute of Canada, in Charlottetown.

She and her husband opened Cafe Maplethorpe upon her graduation.

Dianna won the 2007 Taste Our Island award for her dedication to promoting PEI agriculture. In addition to offering good eats, the late-blooming chef organizes so-called "culinary tourism" events, including a weekly farm tour followed by a cooking demonstration.

Expanding on the culinary tourism theme, this past summer she provided workshops to teach Japanese tourists how to make pies, using seasonal Island fruit.

"Although North Americans might view making pie as fairly mundane, it's a new experience for most Japanese," she writes on her blog at cafemaplethorpe.com. "What a great way to share an authentic taste of Prince Edward Island."

Q Where are you from?
A I was raised in the town of Mexico, in Missouri. I have lived in Tokyo, as well as the US states of Iowa and Montana…. We moved to PEI in 2002. My husband worked with district school boards, which meant moving a lot. We were going to retire here but fell in love with a mansion and opened a B&B.

Q Who do you look up to?
A Small family farmers and artisan food producers. These folks often work three or four jobs off the farm just to support their passion for growing the food that we all count on. They are my heroes.

Q What is your favourite ingredient?
A Lemons are a staple in my kitchen. A bit of lemon zest perks up just about anything.

Q What kitchen tools can you not live without?
A My husband, and my Microplane grater.

Q What is your favourite type of cooking?
A Baking is my passion. There are few things more comforting than the smell and taste of fresh-baked breads.

Q Do you have a cooking tip to share?
A People have a tendency to overcook things. For most vegetables, crisp is better-tasting and healthier. Most meats are more tender when prepared with higher heat and less cooking time than what we think is necessary.

Q What foods do you eat in secret?
A I used to eat the raisins out of the Raisin Bran cereal - so plump and sweet! My family complained that the cereal was a rip-off because it never had more than a few raisins in the box.

Q What accomplishment are you most proud of?
A Raising kids who actually know how to cook for themselves from scratch.

Q What's the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in the kitchen?
A One time our teenager boiled eggs, put them in the ice maker to cool down, then forgot about them. It took about two weeks for the eggs to make their way to the bottom, spewing out with the crushed ice - and into the water glasses served to guests.