Ottawa

Celebrity chef's magazine published by Ottawa company

An Ottawa company is responsible for publishing the North American version of a magazine featuring recipes and stories from British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

Jamie Oliver's smartphone app also created by Ottawa's idoodlemedia

An Ottawa company is the publisher of a new magazine and the creator of a new smartphone app for celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

The Ottawa tech company idoodlemedia inc. has created a smartphone app to run with the print magazine. (Jamie Long/CBC)

The magazine, Jamie: making you a better cook, will hit North American newsstands next week after being adapted from the original magazine already published in the chef's native Britain.

The North American magazine will feature articles on such Canadian topics as Nova Scotia cuisine. It will also change metric measurements, such as millilitres, to imperial measurements for American readers.

The company, idoodlemedia inc., also has to change British words to their North American equivalents, such as changing "gammon" to ham.

The publisher, Robert Sowah, said his company was first involved with the magazine when it created an interactive smartphone app for it, which also launches this month. The print magazine came later as a dual project.

"You don't see many of these global brands come up for an opportunity like this and you certainly don't see many of them in Ottawa," Sowah told the CBC's Kate Porter.

"So the fact we can take something and turn it into the centre of North America … it feels great."

The app will show Oliver's popular recipes and link to grocery stores that sell the featured ingredients.