simply simple

I feel I’ve entered my indulgence era. So I indulge.

In the last few weeks I’ve succumbed to whims I’ve never had before – my eyebrows have been waxed…I bought new makeup…and last week I skipped out of work during lunch for a quick mani/pedi…this just isn’t me, or wasn’t.

And I enjoyed every indulgent second as others worked on me like a beautification project – cleaning up the ragged edges that winter and disease had done to me. And like spring rain and its partner warm sunshine, I was cleaned from the inside out.

On a beautiful, soft night we had dear friends over, who were happy to be fed. And I set myself the challenge for how simply I could feed them and yet still feel the full force of full flavour.

I came up with burgers and 3 salads. Okay not so simple in the aggregate, but as individuals? Stellar examples of their kind. The classic: Potato Salad, the comfort: Roasted Beet Salad, the tart: Arugula and Baby Spinach with lemon dressing.

Steve picked up grass-fed ground beef from our favourite food store that supports the Mennonite and Amish farmers to the southwest of us. We say, “thank you cow” after the first bite, because it is not your basic ground meat. It has turned me back into a burger biter after many years of hiatus.

So how to complement that? Bbq’d burgers need, demand, lust for, partnership with potato salad.

And having scoured my books, I suddenly remembered that Cook’s Illustrated had an article on the perfect potato salad. The All-American Potato Salad is part of their Summer Grilling & Entertaining special edition – but also from their 2004 collection. Rebecca Hays performed a heroic duty and dug through all the ugly versions of potato salad.

And there I was last week, on the subway, riveted by her inner musings and debates: russet versus Yukon gold, including garlic or not, pickles, dry mustard or prepared - now in high school, if science had been about potato salad, I might have taken a different path…

I’m a food geek. Almost missed my stop because someone in a test kitchen somewhere was writing about one of my favourite foods and dissecting and rebuilding it into a classic – yeah…food geek.

So I used her journey as my guide. This served four and we have leftovers for dinner tonight.

Cross Border Classic Potato Salad
3 russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 tbsp white vinegar
½ cup celery, finely chopped
2 tbsp red onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp sweet pickle relish (this is a new one on me…the recipe calls for 3 tbsp, but I found it too much - I would normally use dill pickles and a little pickle juice)
½ cup mayonnaise (use the real thing, not salad dressing)
¾ tsp dry mustard
¾ tsp celery seed (she swears this makes all the difference, but I couldn’t find any in three stores…and I thought Toronto was cosmopolitan even in its approach to suburban fare like potato salad!)
2 tbsp minced parsley
¼ tsp black pepper
(I didn’t go for the optional two hard-boiled eggs)
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill (not part of the recipe, but I had it on the counter)

Put the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water by an inch (2cm). Bring them to a gentle boil and then simmer until tender. Strain them, carefully put them in a bowl, and drizzle the vinegar over them. Let them cool.

Meanwhile, combine the other ingredients for the dressing.

Once the potatoes are cool, spoon the dressing onto the potatoes and carefully mix together (don’t be rough, the potatoes might not like it). Spoon it one at a time until you’ve reached the right balance of dressing to potato for you. I didn’t use all the dressing I made.

Roasted beet and mint salad

3-4 beets
2 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
½ red onion, diced
dressing, recipe to follow

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Scrub the beets clean.

Cut off the greens from the beets – leaving about 1 inch (2cm) of stems off the top. If you have the leaves, you can cook them in the same way you would use swiss chard, if you don't leave them on the counter for a week, like I did.

Wrap each beet in foil. Place on a cookie sheet and roast in the oven for one hour.

Pull them out (if you’re not sure if they’re done, stick a sharp knife into one to see if it’s tender.)

Once cool, peel them and cut them into whatever size, shape you’d like.

Toss with the mint, parsley and onion.

We debated what kind of dressing to put on this…and I wanted the taste to be simple. So I mixed some apple cider vinegar, a little dry mustard, and whisked in some olive oil. Dip a piece of beet into the dressing to see if you like the combo. Pour over the salad and allow to sit for a while.

Arugula and Baby Spinach

Carefully clean the arugula and spinach leaves.
Combine with spring onion, small tomatoes (like Campari), red pepper, and cucumber.
Dressing – Juice 1/2 a lemon into a bowl, watch for seeds. Zest a little of the lemon into the bowl. Add about ½ tsp of sugar. Stir to combine. Slowly drizzle in olive oil as you whisk with the other hand. Grab a piece of arugula and dip it in the dressing – it should bite a bit but feel very fresh, without being too tart.

And how did we close the circle? End the feast? The first of the local strawberry harvest are hitting our markets now…so I washed the strawberries, put them in one bowl. Then I whipped some cream, and put that in a matching bowl. Take your fingers, grad a berry, dip…Simply simple.

a privileged voice

The fear of failure and a lack of imagination - especially in cooking, is all it takes to burn a meal. Cooking and nourishing is the engine of life. And like everything there is wisdom in the charred bits of life. The benefits of failure and an imagination wide enough to be open to others' suffering - these are powerful forces. Although I don't think JK Rowling had cooking in mind during her commencement address to the graduates of Harvard University.

Enjoy.

peaks at the past

I bought mascara the other day. It was a peak experience.
My eyes, the brow above, and the billiard ball above that, have been hair challenged - and have won the fight. My head is now filled with a new kind of hair - soft and fine like a newborn's.
And so I am, in a way.

Sometimes life shows you what's what.

In a moment of doubt, in a moment when life shakes off your yellowing veneer, you look back on the path you've been on and see it more clearly than you thought possible.

The stuff you'd rather not remember, the parts of you you're not so crazy about, the parts that warm you through with light and love too - no one's immune from that spectrum - it's in all of us.

When your face is held to the prism of your life you really do hope for the best don't you? You don't want to say the line Shirley Valentine gulped out to the camera, "I've led such a little life." - I saw that movie just when I should - as I entered adulthood - and it scared the shit out of me. I remember turning thirty and clinking glasses with a friend daring each other to make it the best decade of our lives so far...

and it was...

and I plan to beat it.

I traveled. And traveled.

I stood on mountains, and under oceans, in jungles and in deserts.

I gave in to my need to write and fell in love with the writer.

I forgave myself my faults – and continue to everyday.

I fell in love. And listened to my instinct, my rock, when it said firmly and quietly, “Yes.”

Which means I married him.

And I’m now in the legion of people who have survived cancer. So far.

Talk about your peak experiences.

In my moments of doubt, when the concept of cancer being in my body at the age of 44 scares me blind, I look back at what I’ve done. And I smile with relief. It’s been hard and amazing and I’m not done yet. I’d be so depressed if what I looked back on was so little…although maybe it would kick me right in the ambition.

I’m more sensitive to beauty, peace, and wanting to do what I want to do. My ambitions have changed. I’m not going to climb Everest – but I’m going to try and convince Steve we have to stand at Everest base camp. I’ve been to Annapurna’s base camp – and it was a peak experience. And so…I’m not done yet.

That said, my perceptions are alive to now. I couldn’t be happier than to be through this valley as spring gushes up around us. And this week we had local asparagus. Life is sweet.

a leap to march

If you've ever been tempted to celebrate leap year - and given the weather here right now, this is a long, long February to celebrate the end of - I wish you even half the energy and creativity of one of my new friends. She sent me this last week. I loved it and wanted to share it with you...it starts with food...Happy Leap Day - off toward March and spring...

If you are feeling social Friday Night – the 29th of February – Leap Year, come party with us.
Leap year comes only once every four years – let’s leap, jump and jive.

As usual there is a suggested schedule of events starting with the traditional cutting of the cucumber sandwich ritual at 8pm sharp.

Schedule:

8.00 Cutting of the Cucumber Sandwich Ritual
8.15 Short performance by host on piano
8.30 Question Period - guest volunteers to be questioned by those present, topics include but not limited to: Allergies, hobbies, travel, phobias, religious views
8.45 Board games and card games begin under the loft
9.00 Newest 45 records donated by Nick spun on turntable
9.30 First rotation of the disco ball
10.00 Mystery guest arrives, whispers in ear, leaves
10.15 Mayhem, absolute mayhem.
10.20 Leap! Leap!
10.30 Piano playing for 15 minutes only, no flugelhorns, bongos or bagpipes please. Singers sing, players play.
10.45 Connie Frances Twist Album
11.00 OK, bagpipes
11.00 Parade of the wind up toys (Unfinished business from last party when host couldn’t find them)
Exchange of business cards near battery operated yapping little white dog
11.30 dancing
12.00 spiders discussed
12.30 dancing
1.00 ghost stories
1.30 bed time stories, flannel
2.00 host crashes (sings in synagogue next morning at 8.30 am)

RSVP If you are coming, feel free to bring a friend especially if they are of fine character.
BYOB or whatever, there’ll certainly be some wine if you are just passing through so no need to fret. Oh, fret. I forgot to put that in the schedule.

Culin-oscar-py's 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen.

Welcome to this year's red carpet. Yeah baby, it's shag.

Time to showcase the foods that deserve recognition, endorsements and Winston's gems.

Last year I asked for the all time greatest acceptance speeches for the food you're most grateful for.

This year...Imagine - which star, alive or dead, is sitting at your dining room table - sipping champagne - come on, I said imagine...who would it be? And what would you be making them for dinner?

A pulled pork sandwich for...?
A fruitcake for....?
A bottle of water and lettuce for...?

I dare ya...and keep it clean babes.

off the mark

I tripped on a show about interior design today.

The host was exploring minimalism.

In the next segment I saw a rotating shot of a statue of Buddha. Sitting. Cross legged. In meditation.

She said Buddha is a symbol of enlightenment. It is a symbol of zen.

And as a result it was a feature of today's segment: Gotta Have It.

I changed the channel.

a little giverny

Playing in Claude Monet's garden at Giverny outside Paris - is being in a painting - the lily ponds, the arched bridges, the willow trees are famous - and the controlled gardens outside the house itself are beautiful, even in the rain.

We were there last July, a quick visit, a beautiful diversion, before my journey to the riverbank.



We fled into the house itself to escape the rain - and I found myself in a kitchen and dining room that are, well, quite something.



I had no idea that Monet was such a food freak.






When I got home our landlady lent me a book called Monet's Table - The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet by Claire Joyes.


She wrote, "It was only at Giverny, which he discovered in 1883, that Monet was able to establish the lifestyle that really suited him..."

Monet had shared another house with a couple who had once been his patrons but who had lost all their money. Monet's first wife, Camille was dying. The other couple had separated and Alice Hoschede and her six children moved in with the Monet's, "living as one" once Camille had died in 1879...by 1892 when Alice's estranged husband had died, she and Monet married.

"Their sole culinary ambition," Joyes wrote, "was to serve beautifully prepared dishes using whatever the kitchen-garden or the farmyard could supply. This was their food, homemade but often making use of recipes invented by the great restaurants they patronized, or even dishes created by their friends, who included writers, art collectors, painters and actors."

And I'm sure they knew a few of those.

At the back is a raft of recipes, including the salt cod bouillabaisse, which comes from Paul Cezanne. And Tarte Tatin, which they managed to convince the actual Tatin sisters to give to them.

Here is the salt cod soup, in the interest of interesting history:

1lb large piece of salt cod
2 cups olive oil
1/2 cup flour
6 potatoes, sliced
4 leeks, white parts only, sliced crosswise
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1/8 tsp saffron
1 bayleaf

Soak the salt cod for 24 hours. Use a colander, put the fish skin side up and change the water occasionally. (This part takes me back to Portugal and Portuguese Christmas)...Drain well and pat dry. Heat the olive oil in a skillet. When it's smoking, dust the salt cod with some of the flour and fry it until it's cooked through, but not brown. Remove, drain and put it aside. Use the same skillet to saute the potatoes for about 10 minutes, until almost cooked through.

Pour a little of the frying old into a deep cast-iron pot. Add the leeks and saute tem on low heat. Slowly add the pepper, cloves, garlic, parsley, saffron, bayleaf, and the rest of the flour, which will brown in the oil. Add 6 cups hot water, and boil, covered, over high heat for 10-15 minutes. Slide the cod and potatoes into the pot.

Serves 6.

a+b=boybandsong

Okay. Enjoy...a post-valentine antidote.

The Title of the Song...

from me to you...happy February 15th.

tasha

Tasha died tonight.
She is one of the animals I have been lucky to love in my life.
She owned two of my dearest friends, and she spent her whole life smiling, wagging, sniffing, living and, I swear, laughing with them.
She was a reflection of their hearts.
They loved her well, so she lived well.
I will miss her.

on the moon in winter

My body is one treatment away from the end of chemo. This weekend marks the precarious bridge between the treatment a week ago and the final one on Valentines Day. This weekend my immune system will be at its ebb – the neutrophils fighting to come back, any germs that harbour in me, fighting to take possession of their host, me.

It’s my reality - a surreal balancing act.

I can’t feel it – I just know it’s happening. I’ve lived in a bubble since the last treatment, staying far from humans and our parasites and germs which hitch rides on us all. That too is surreal – staying in contact through the web – feeling like I’m on the moon.

The race between my plummeting white blood cells and the germs has shown itself a little. I have thrush for example. It’s a yeast infection of the tongue – how delightful. It is also ironic. The fungus coats your tongue in a blanket – putting an insulation layer between you and food. Between you and flavour. That’s not just ironic. That’s just cruel.

Living without flavour is something I would hate. Now that I’m doing it and know it’s temporary – it’s a little bit bearable.

But something’s happened. I find myself more aware of taste – hunting carefully for it with every bite. Attuning my senses as I can.

Just last week I saw a science program about taste – and they told the story of a wine taster here in Canada who fell, bumped her noggin while curling, went to a wine tasting two days later only to discover after the first swig that there was nothing there. She couldn’t taste it. With rising panic she tasted a second red. Nothing. That was 7 years ago or so…She never got it back. She was lost.

I feel myself hitting back. In defiance I reach out for the strongest tastes I can muster. At a restaurant two weeks ago I pulled back the waiter as he was leaving with our order to add anchovies to my Caesar salad. Anchovies! Anchovies? Me? Me, who would walk around the block as a kid to avoid the smell of a fishmonger’s? And I could taste them. I may never do it again, but they kicked ass.

I made one of our favourite side dishes last week – basmati rice with caramelized onions and greens folded in, fresh ginger and garlic, red pepper, a little shaved carrot - I salted it. Then I salted it. By the time we forked it in our mouths, our kidneys were begging for relief and a bucket of water.

But I could taste it. Even I could tell I’d used a backhoe’s worth of salt. It kicked ass - and not in a good way.

And what’s saving my soul right now? My precious nose – while my tongue is subjugated to the tyranny of this white, furry blanket – my nose is in hyperdrive. Ever on the hunt for the most expressive smell it can find that’s beautiful.

It dives for every pot – we made stock on the weekend – I spray myself liberally with my perfume and drink in the smell like I’m dehydrated sensually – I absent-mindedly bought a bar of soap near the cash at the drug store the other night, olive oil soap with lavender…the smell of lavender…while at other times reminds me of lace and grandma’s, has come to smell of beauty and the earth, and sweetness mixed with spice – I found myself in the bathroom yesterday, grabbing at the pretty block of plain brown paper and just inhaling the essence of wild fields and sun and warmth.

Just standing in my bathroom, in the basement of this old house, at the end of Canadian January, transported sensually to France. To windblown fields, where lavender grows defiantly where it likes, where my hand tugs gently up the stem as I walk along in the sun, and flies to my nose to gulp down the essence quickly before it evaporates.

Existentialism in the bathroom. I think that's where most people find it, isn't it?

And in the kitchen.

My eyes are part of the conspiracy – I ache for beauty – at a time when my own feels so buried, a field of fuzz on my head, not enough eyelash to hit with a mascara wand, eyebrows once so defiantly bold that now look like a smudge – at a time of year when tree limbs are asleep and unconscious of the wind and the windchill, when the soil is rocked solid by ice, where the beautiful grays and browns and purples are the sum of the spectrum – the time of year when I start dreaming of magnolia and daffodils, crocuses and those first winter snowdrops that will poke above the soil not long from now – I look for beauty in people’s eyes and smiles, in red sofas, in fur hats, in dappled sunlight, in caramelized onions.

And I stare.

My meals need colour…this isn’t an appetite issue (I’ve gained five kilos and am over-sufficiently spongy). This is my sensual appetite struggling through this winter to supersede biology.

It’s a gift. Seeing, tasting and smelling like I’m parched. It’s a gift.

another graceful offering

As Karen is to being alive, Carol is our spiritual hunter - ever in search of peace of mind. She's methodical, organized (actually most of the graces in my life are highly organized, I've learned lots from them), fiercely loyal, caring and huggy.

She organized the cooking night that pulled together five women who would put oodles of food in my freezer.

She not only invited the graces to bring recipes, but she made one of her own and served us dinner, all on a Tuesday night.

My job was to sit in a chair, scoff appetizers, throw wine down my gullet and offer pithy critiques of the whole jumbled process. They said that's what I do best....hmmm.

Carol's dinner choice was interesting. It was Chicken Sausage with White Beans and Rosemary, from a book called On Rice by Rick Rodgers (wasn't he a country singer? he shoulda been...maybe that's where the bean recipe comes from, home on the range).

Rodgers writes in his book that this is a Tuscan version of the worldwide pairing of beans and rice - I have a limit to my beans and rice intake, since my various trips to Central and South America. I have done my fair share...

This recipe sounded pretty white - and pretty bland. But it was incredibly comforting. So I share it here - although I might raise the octane on some of the flavourings at will - and don't skimp on the salt. Taste carefully at the end.

Chicken Sausage with White Beans and Rosemary, from On Rice

1 lb hot or sweet chicken sausage or turkey Italian sausage
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium red pepper, seeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary or 1-1/2 tsp dried rosemary
2 cans (15 ounces each) white kidney beans
1/4 tsp of salt (I'd add and taste...because I suspect this might be low for some people)
1/4 tsp of freshly ground black pepper

Pierce the sausage with a fork. Place in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Simmer uncovered, until the sausage is firm, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a plate to cool. Slice the sausage into 1/2" rounds and set aside. (I might grill these next time, to see if that offers a different hit of flavour.)

In a flame proof casserole or Dutch oven heat the oil. Add the onion, garlic and red pepper. Cook for about 4 minutes, stirring often.

Stir in the broth, wine and rosemary. Bring to a simmer for five minutes, uncovered. Add beans and sausage rounds, simmer for 10 minutes until beans are hot. Add salt and pepper.

Serve with rice. Place rice in bottom of bowl and spoon meat and beans over top, and serve.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

insulation essentials

Karen finds grace everywhere. Of all the graces in my life, Karen lives by the ethos of experience - try it, push it, live it. She wants to travel everywhere - she wants to try every food - she wants to live every experience she can. She is the most alive of us.

Even her hair is long and wild and crazy. We traveled briefly together in Nepal and the Nepalese loved to touch her hair. They called it happy hair - and that happiness permeates her.

And she finds grace in kitsch - before she went through her paring down phase, she had the coolest collection of snowglobes. She now lives out of town unfortunately - she teaches some unwittingly lucky students at a college up north.

She's donated recipes before to foodnut - her stellar magic nuts which are now a classic in my kitchen - and her less than helpful recipe for homemade cheez whiz that was meant for her recipe cheesy broccoli casserole meant to be eaten with tongue firmly in cheek.

She came into town to help in the cooking marathon to feed my freezer. Here is what she donated to the cause:

"This Mac & Cheese recipe comes from the Best of Bridge books, both "Grand Slam" and "The Best of the Best". Voila...Karenxo"

Gourmet Macaroni & Cheese

2 1/2 cups macaroni (625 ml)
1/4 cup butter (60 ml)
1/4 cup flour (60 ml)
2 cups milk (500 ml)
1 tsp. salt (5 ml)
1 tsp. sugar (5 ml)
1/2 lb. processed cheese, cubed (250 g)
(Velveeta works... yes Nicky there is processed cheese in it... it's good though right?)
2/3 cup sour cream (150 ml)(fat free
is fine)
1 1/3 cups cottage cheese (325 ml)
2 cups grated old cheddar cheese (500 ml)
1 1/2 cups soft breadcrumbs (375 ml)
2 Tbsp. butter (30 ml)
paprika

Instructions:
Cook and drain macaroni and place in a 2 1/2 quart (2.5 L) greased casserole. Melt butter over medium heat; stir in flour; mix well. Add milk and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until sauce thickens. Add salt, sugar and cheese. Mix well. Mix sour cream and cottage cheese into sauce. Pour over macaroni. Mix well. Sprinkle cheddar cheese and crumbs over top. Dot with butter and sprinkle with paprika. May be frozen at this point. Bake at 350F (180C) for 45-50 minutes. Serves 6.

spanish chicken in my kitchen

There are moments in life that stop you cold - not including January in Canada.
Moments when grace fills your life, and if you're lucky you can feel it.
I'm surrounded by grace - women and men whose spirits anchor me in place - whose support cradles me - whose generosity inspires me.

When Charlie Rose asked Ruth Reichl what elevates a good cook into a great cook - you could sense he was looking for an answer like technique, experience, the love of risk. She said generosity.

And I was thrilled - because that is what cooking is to me - a place to let my heart out and let it nourish others. I felt if we ever met, I'd be understood.

The graces in my life got together and cooked for me a while ago. Five women, one kitchen, five recipes, one freezer.

Nic worked on one counter making her famous mushroom soup. Jain slaved at the stove over shepherd's pie. Karen got to the oven early to bake macaroni and cheese. Carol, being the host, had already made vegetarian chili. And the recipe I'll share today came with Naomi - who has made chicken marbella many times - and a few times for Steve and I.

It is a classic that comes from, once again, the Silver Palate Cookbook - it was in fact the first entree they offered their customers.

When Naomi wrote me the recipe she added, "I just wing-ed it (as it were) because instead of 4 chickens, I used 6 legs-plus-thighs.. Also, I deleted the olives (for the sake of Sir Steve)... And I didn’t puree the garlic, I used one of those hardware-grater thingees..."

It seems a versatile dish - with sweetness and saltiness in balance. It can be an appetizer or main - and while they recommend you serve it at room temperature, there are some climates and times when hot is where it's at. And having just put the plastic over the bedroom window to cut the draft - I know it's January again. We froze the chicken in individual portions (in the freezer, not on the window sill, if you're wondering), thawed it carefully and warmed it in the oven.

For you, with grace - Chicken Marbella, adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook.

1⁄2 cup olive oil
1⁄2 cup red wine vinegar
1 cup pitted prunes
1⁄2 cup pitted Spanish green olives
1⁄2 cup capers with a bit of juice
6 bay leaves
1 head of garlic, peeled and finely puréed
1⁄4 cup dried oregano
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 chickens (2 1⁄2 pounds each), quartered
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup dry white wine
1⁄4 cup fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley or fresh cilantro, finely chopped

1. Combine the olive oil, vinegar, prunes, olives, capers and juice, bay leaves, garlic, oregano, and salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add the chicken and stir to coat. Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. (The marinating is essential, don't skimp on the time.)

2. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

3. Arrange the chicken in a single layer in one or two large, shallow baking pans and spoon the marinade over it evenly. Sprinkle the chicken pieces with the brown sugar and pour the white wine around them.

4. Bake, basting frequently with the pan juices, until the thigh pieces yield clear yellow (rather than pink) juice when pricked with a fork, 50 minutes to 1 hour.

5. With a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken, prunes, olives, and capers to a serving platter. Moisten with a few spoonfuls of the pan juices and sprinkle generously with the parsley or cilantro. Pass the remaining pan juices in a sauceboat.

16 pieces, 10 or more portions

Note from Silver Palate: "To serve Chicken Marbella cold, cool to room temperature in the cooking juices before transferring the pieces to a serving platter. If the chicken has been covered and refrigerated, reheat it in the juices, then allow it to come to room temperature before serving. Spoon some of the reserved juice over the chicken."

umm, not so much

In this month's Saveur there is a very cool article by Laura Shapiro called "Taste of the Nation" about a fascinating project from the 30s to collect together a massive book of recipes that they wanted to call "America Eats".

It was part of Roosevelt's New Deal program to put writers to work. Unfortunately it was never finished - although some people are working on projects to get it out of the archive dungeon and into the light of day. It sounds amazing and I hope we see more of it.

The disturbing part is that apparently the Roosevelt White House used to hold their dinners and "sometimes sat down to a salad of pineapple 'sticks' rolled in crushed peppermints."

oh...my...

Now the most disturbing word in that sentence?

"Sometimes..."

…Does Ms. Shapiro mean to say they served this more than once? Was it to Stalin? Because peppermint rolled pineapple sticks is for evil doers.

techie tea

So I was reading Kate's blog on tea at Accidental Hedonist as I'm wont to do. And one of the comments included this website for Macheads, your very own desktop Tea Timer

And given my ritualistic zen thing about tea - which some might call just tight-assed - when I saw the tea timer download...I just HAD to share...

Go in peace...And put the kettle on.

Code Red - food emergency

When the cover came off the plate, I realized it wasn’t there to enhance anticipation. It was to prevent retching.

It’s been a long time since I was forced to eat institutionalized food – so these words came out before I’d picked up my knife and fork:

It’s a slice of Alpo. Warmed up.

Waxed in gravy that had separated in brown globs inside diluted, gelatinous corn starch.

A blob of fake mashed potato.

And four spears of broccoli that seemed offended.

They called it meatloaf.

And I ate it….

Life gets smaller when you’re sick.

Have you noticed that? If you have the flu and you’re curled up in bed in a fetal position, your life shrink wraps around you. The farther away the news, the people, events, the less important. Your obsessions change from say, the currency market in Hong Kong, or women’s rights in Afghanistan, to orange juice.

Not from concentrate.

I noticed that on Saturday. For the second time in my life I had to go to emergency…the first time I was four, enjoying my favourite post-grocery shopping treat of the week: french fries and Coke with my bof. (Okay we didn’t shop for food as much as spin ourselves sick on the railings of the grocery cart corral.) She and I started wrassling and I twisted my arm in the back of the chair, screamed, then whimpered heroically all the way to the hospital – where they made us wait so long, I was fine by the time they x-rayed it. I remember coming home bummed because I was castless. Casts on the arm were cool…they indicated adventure. To a four year old.

This time the emergency room and I got intimate because I developed a fever – and on chemo (I’m 2/3 of the way through) – that’s a no-no. I didn’t want to be a patient. I’ll tolerate outpatient. Not patient. I think it makes me feel too vulnerable. I hate feeling vulnerable. No wait. I hate being out of control – think of the back of the gown alone – it just screams: here is a specimen.

So, chemo attacks any rapidly-dividing cells – unfortunately including my white blood cells which fight infection. They become what Rumsfeld or Cheney would call medical collateral damage. Doing harm to do good.

They had pounded into me that if my temperature hit 38 degrees Celsius (100 F) I wasn’t to call or wait or anything. Just get to ER. So we did. And there I stayed – four days until my immune system showed it could behave itself.

I may have dreaded the idea, but I was grateful to be there.

But what gives hospitals the right to twist that gratitude by admitting you and then serving you Alpo and calling it meatloaf?

Or chicken noodle casserole? Sunday night.

Or pork goulash? Monday night (I ordered the vegetables alone).

All meals whose ingredients have more in common with a lab than the soil.

Food that's beyond life support. That gave up trying. That never had a chance.

We joked about it in our room. There were three of us.

While I was there one of my penmates heard that she had won a bed at the particular palliative care centre she wanted to die in. She almost cried with joy. Life had shrink-wrapped around her tight.

She looked a little older than I. Not much. After two rounds of chemo, she told them to stop. Her skin was just starting to tinge yellow – that stealthy, creeping sign.

She obsessed about the tiniest, molecular-sized things. Her clock was angled incorrectly. She stopped a nurse to have him turn the waste basket the other way. Her bed pads were wrong. The curtain was too far along. Her light had to be on. She didn't read. She didn't have a tv. And she stayed awake all night, like an owl. Waiting.

She had been there since before fall had turned to winter.

Her friends and family visited every day, bringing her what she wanted – a submarine sandwich one night (the night I had the Alpo, which was just unfair) – a cheeseburger and onion rings from their teenaged hangout joint the next night.

I laid there listening from behind the curtain that I shrouded around myself trying not to let in what this third-floor ward meant. Steve and I walked around one morning only to come across a priest, holding his book in front, leaning on the wall, looking at the floor, his sacrament collar dangling, as he waited to deliver last rites. And even over the incredible din of the overwhelmed nurses' station, you could hear the weeping from somewhere. We turned back. Down another hall, another family with young kids gathered around another bed, the husband saying it was going from hour to hour. His wife is, if she still is, 43.

That, my dears, is too close. I like the world of denial much better. We walked over to the cardiology floor…

So, knowing I was escaping to come home, knowing I’d be able to sink and drown the smell of the hospital in a perfumed bath, knowing that I’d feel the weight and security of my down duvet, and knowing that I could make my own dinner with ingredients that were loved and respected, not institutionalized/brutalized and processed into the “shape” of short back ribs, no bones! (yes, my first night there)…I found myself wandering through my cookbook collection and free-floating recipes to find the most fundamental recipe I could offer – that represents love, respect, comfort and life.

Here it is – for you.

My Mum’s Yorkshire Puddings

vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups milk (Mum uses 1 or 2%)

Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Take a 12- cup muffin tin and pour enough vegetable oil (canola is my Mum's preference) into each cup to coat the bottom (she uses about 1 tsp per)
Put the tin in the oven to heat up.

Meanwhile, whip together the eggs. Then add the flour, salt and milk. Beat until smooth.

Carefully remove the tin from the oven and again, carefully pour the mixture into each cup filling about 1/2 to 2/3 full. If the oil doesn't sizzle, it's not hot enough.

Put them back in the oven for approximately 15-25 minutes. They should puff up and turn a beautiful golden colour.

Remove from oven and put into a serving dish - and take to your table groaning with roast beef and horseradish and vegetables and gravy.

Do what we always did as kids, when you get one or two or three on your plate, pour gravy into the well that formed in the centre. And devour.

If there are any left over, and if you like cold leftovers, these are beautiful with jam the next morning.

Yorkshire puddings - fundamental. From my Mum's big, loving (and non-shrink wrapped) heart to yours.

Cranberry Bog-Down

I'm heading for the store. Apparently there is a cranberry shortage - not enough farmers, too cool a summer, too much demand.

Not enough cranberries!

And according to the buyer I heard on cbc radio - it ain't getting any better soon. He advised everyone to buy and freeze.

So if you're hoping for fresh cranberry sauce in a few weeks - it's time to get strategic.

no gain, no pain

I started walking home from work again. Or at least an hour of the way home. For exercise, you understand. I'm no martyr.

I'm almost halfway through chemo now, sitting here with my laptop and mug of tea, and able to tell you, that, apart from getting used to the weirdness of having a head more akin to a billiard ball, than a head, so far so good. I'm working full time, and once I'm through the first few days, after the first few waves of nausea are beaten back by drugs, after the Sunday I spend sleeping on the couch, I'm back on track.

So here's the kicker - the week after chemo I feel like I'm eating for Canada. It's not hard for me to have two breakfasts, two sandwiches for lunch, potato chips on demand, fruit, carrot sticks to balance the front part out, sweets, chocolate, double helpings for dinner...

...and so, until this week I was avoiding the subway in fear of germs, but now...I gotta tell you I'm in more fear of cellulite.

Surprised the hell out of me. Lordy - I'd do a logger proud at the table. Or I'd scare him back to the woods.

So some of my graces - you know I always thought I had three graces in my life, but I've discovered my life is full of graces - got together on Tuesday night and we drank wine, we ate dinner, and they cooked freezable meals for me. I'm going to share their recipes if they let me...one of them you'd already know - Wild Mushroom Soup

I now have piles of macaroni & cheese, shepherd's pie, vegetarian chile, and chicken marbella sitting in the freezer, in individual containers - ready to be thawed, heated and consumed...now if I could only remember that order while in my ravenous state.

The other kicker is how strong flavours really entice me - none of this bland, wishy washy stuff - give me flavour. Not heat. Flavour. Heat, bad on the mouth and stomach now. Flavour good on the tongue and palate now.

In this state it's not hard to live in cookbooks. I read them, devour them, live through them.

And having indulged in a beautiful cookbook called Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet by two Canadians who live to travel, cook, then write about it -

huh...note to self...interesting dream job where the kitchen reno would be a write-off...

I was transfixed by the possibility of learning how to make cold spring rolls - the Vietnamese ones. I remember eating them for the first time in a Vietnamese restaurant in Montreal - I was with a group of friends the day after a wedding, the small kitchen restaurant kept rolling these rolls out the door, and I just kept rolling them down my gullet. I was intrigued by the texture of the wrapper, the blend of the vegetables and the fresh kick of the fresh mint. Oh and the dipping sauce.

So when Alford and Duguid wrote that it was entirely within my power to make them in my own small kitchen - I was up at the corner grocer in a flash.

They take some practice. So don't try these as your guests are walking in the door. Unless you're prepared to order pizza.

Rice Paper Roll-Ups with Shrimp and Herbs
- adapted from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Hot Sour Salty Sweet

I think the key to these is to prep everything, have it ready to assemble and then go...the other key is what the authors suggest: do it with friends.

12 medium shrimp - I made these with only vegetables, and I imagine you could use anything you fancy...pork strips? chicken?
3-4 oz dried rice vermicelli, soak in warm water for 20 mins and drain
15 rice papers (about 8" in diameter - I used 5" - Use 8", better)
1 1/2 cups bean sprouts, blanched in boiling water for 3o seconds and drained
3/4 cup of grated carrot tossed with 1 tbsp of rice vinegar and 1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup of mint leaves
30 chives, or the greens from scallions that you've cut thinly into slivers
1/2 cup coriander leaves, but I substituted parsley, because there is little I don't like in the fine world of herbs, but coriander is it.

Boil water in a large saucepan. Cook the shrimp until firm to the touch, 1-3 minutes. Lift out immediately and cool on a plate. Shell and devein them and split them lengthwise.

Use the same boiling water to cook the vermicelli, just for two minutes until they're soft. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Place a bowl of warm water nearby - large enough to hold the diameter of the rice wrappers. Wet a tea towel and lay it on the counter or workspace you'll be using. Pull all your ingredients in front of you.

Start by putting one rice paper in the bowl of warm water for 30 seconds until soft. Lift it out gently and lay it on the wet tea towel.

The recipe calls for 1 tbsp of the noodles to be laid on the bottom one third of the wrapper, then the same of the bean sprouts.

I then laid the carrot mixture and herbs on that, then the mint, and started rolling, I added slivers of red pepper since I wasn't using shrimp, and the parsley. Once you have it rolled over once or twice, fold over each edge toward the middle and then keep rolling up. Moisten the edge with water.

Place seam side down on a platter which you keep covered with a second moistened tea towel.

You should really serve these immediately, but apparently they'll keep under the towel and plastic wrap for a couple of hours. We didn't give them the chance.

I love how they suggest serving them: "To eat, place a leaf of lettuce in your palm and lay a roll-up on it. Wrap the lettuce leaf round one end of the roll-up as if you were wrapping a cone in a napkin. Use a small spoon to drizzle on the sauce as you eat, mouthful by mouthful."

Speaking of which, I made up their recipe of "Vietnamese Must-Have Table Sauce" which is wicked easy and delicious. It's a combo of lime juice, fish sauce, water, rice vinegar, sugar, garlic and bird chile...

I'm anxious to dig into some more of these recipes - in fact we're starting to plan our new year's eve annual tasting dinner and this book is a great contender as the anchor of that dinner...upon which our transition into a new year, with new hope, rests...No pressure.

standing up for your fruitcake

It's December and the smells of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg start drifting through me by habit. I think it's what coils around my DNA actually. Maybe it's a seasonal chromosome, maybe red and green, flaring once a year like a beacon to my nose - triggering a longing for mincemeat tarts, Christmas pudding, and yes...believe it...fruitcake.

No one I know likes fruitcake. I feel alone.

Laurie Colwin in Home Cooking quoted Abe Lincoln: "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."

And that sums up the very clearly delineated world of fruitcake.

But that world has its own cracks. And to the left here is where I think fruitcake world cleaves itself. Where it goes terribly, terribly wrong. This is the fruitcake that lives up to the Johnny Carson joke: that there really is only one fruitcake in the world and it's just regifted year after year.

Candied peel. Piled and glistening and drowning the cake underneath. Wrong.

I'm not alone, as it turns out. Since I first posted this, fruitcakers have crept forward to declare their fruitcakeness. It started when a friend came up to me last week to talk about Christmas pudding - she talked wistfully about how her mother-in-law made it when she was well and able. She hasn't had it in years. She also loves mincemeat tarts - which means she loves that combo of deep spice and sweetness, that is distinctly British. And fruitcake. A kindred spirit.

Last year I brought you a recipe for homemade mincemeat. As I look forward to my first tarts of the season - and to Mum's Christmas puddings, which she made and doused in brandy long ago...(hmmm for which I have no recipe yet, and I'm not sure if she's ever written down after decades of puds and brandy) - I bring you this time, for those who will admit to needing one, a fantastic recipe for...The Fruitcake.

What I love about this family recipe below is that it's full of what I do love: raisins, sultanas, currants...and while it calls for some candied peel, we replace it with dried cranberries, or dried cherries.

This recipe comes from my aunt and an ancient magazine recipe from deep inside her recipe box. Years ago I transcribed it to paper. Mum tried to read it to me last night on the phone. The paper is frayed and broken and smudged and stained.

It isn't just for Christmas at Auntie Mag's, fruitcake, complete with royal icing, is everyone's birthday cake - and Mum made me one for my wedding, also dressed in royal icing and flowers - which I'm happy to say I ate all myself since Steve would prefer to have nothing to do with the fruitcake chromosome. So birthdays, weddings, family holidays - a celebration of life -

Serve yourself a chunk with a big mug of tea - turn your back to the naysayers and be smug about it. And it'll last six months in a proper cake tin wrapped up, so you can indulge.

Our family fruitcake

14 oz (400g) sultanas
9 oz (250g) raisins
9 oz (250g) currants
4 oz (100g) stoned prunes, chopped
5 oz (125g) mixed chopped peel (substitute dried cherries or cranberries if you prefer, and I do)
4 oz (115 ml) sherry
1 orange, both rind and juice
1 lemon, both rind and juice
5 oz (125g) glaced cherries, quartered
12 oz (350g) softened butter
10 oz (275g) dark, soft brown sugar
14 oz (400g) plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice - distinctly British - it's a combo of 1 small cinnamon stick and 1 tablespoon each cloves, mace, ground nutmeg, coriander seeds, and allspice berries
1/4 tsp nutmeg, grated
6 medium eggs
2 tbsp apricot jam
2 tbsp black treacle, aka molasses

Wash and dry dried fruit and put in large pan with prunes and peel. Add sherry rind and juice of lemon and orange stir fruit mixture over moderate heat until steaming for five minutes. Turn into a bowl and make sure no juice is wasted. Cool, cover and leave overnight.

The next day, add cherries and nuts to mixture.

The first time I tried this in a standing mixture, I thought I'd gone to heaven. You can do it without the machine, and you'll earn enough muscles to grant yourself an extra slice of cake when it's done.
Preheat your oven to 275 degrees F.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
Sieve all dry ingredients together and add 4 tbsp to creamed mixture. Beat eggs. Gradually add to creamed mixture, beating well, add a little from measured quantity if it curdles.
Beat in jam and treacle, fold in remaining dry ingredients and mix well. Mix in fruits with wooden spoon or spatula (or standing mixer, with a strong motor).
Turn cake mixture into greased and lined tin and smooth top.
Bake for 4 ½ hours – in the lower half of the oven.
Test cake by inserting skewer.
Remove cake from oven, cool in the tin. Leaving 24 hours.

To store: remove from tin, wrap in greaseproof paper and then foil. Keep in a round cake tin.

And enjoy with much glee as people make jokes about how criminal it is to propagate the one fruitcake in the world, yadda, yadda, yadda.

lives and forks

I was having lunch with two new, and increasingly good friends of mine today. We were all devouring exquisite butter chicken, salad and raita - and lubricating it all with mango juice.

And we were inevitably talking about food - because that's how we're becoming friends...our work lives descend (I think I mean ascend) into discussions on how to cook curry, where to find any good Mexican food, what's the best way to stop onions from incinerating...

And we were talking about Alice Waters - because I had read the article in Salon.com about her and was trying to quote some the things she said, which resonated with me - like the smell of onions and garlic - like home.

"When we're eating fast food, we're not just eating the food, we're eating a set of values that comes with the food. And it's telling us that food should be cheap. It's telling us that food should be the same no matter where we are on the planet. It's telling us that advertising confers value. That it's OK to eat 24 hours a day. That there are unlimited resources. It's telling us that the work of the people who grow or raise the food is unimportant -- in fact we don't even need to know. And all of those values are informing what's happening in the world around us."

Later on she said instead of thinking of a meal as something to get over as quickly as possible..."get out of that mind-set and tell yourself cooking is a meditation. I like to do it. It's relaxing for me to come home -- it truly is! -- and wash the salad. I love to see the salad in the sink. To spin the salad. I like to dry it. I like to pound to make a vinaigrette with my mortar and pestle. I enjoy grinding coffee and putting it in the filter and warming up the milk. It's part of a ritual that gives my life meaning and beauty."

So, of course, I ordered her new book.

So I was telling my friends this. Both these women are mothers.

And the mum who has three kids, said she met her neighbour at a party last night. Her neighbour also has three kids, her oldest just a year older than my friend's. So they share a lot of the same insights and overscheduledness, and concerns as their kids transition through their teen years, and sit on the cusp of adulthood. The Mums sit, and with crossed fingers, hope they've raised them as best as can be...

So the neighbour's eldest has gone off to university this year. And my friend said her neighbour misses him. She said there's a hole in the house where he isn't. And when does he pass through her the most? When is his presence missed? It's when she's cooking. When she's making something she knows he loves and he's not there to smell it, to savour it, not there to be enriched by it. And of course there's an echo at the table where he was. The eating without him - the meals are where the echoes of him are the loudest - that makes her realize life's progress...

I just thought that was beautiful - that she had found mindfulness in that.

Have a great weekend.

cocktail party for one

Nausea is not for the faint of heart.
And sometimes I really think my heart is faint, I mean quite wussie.

I am just about one week out from my first infusion of chemo cocktail (I'm taking to calling these cocktail parties - and there are six of them in total - the last of which is on St. Valentine's Day).

These last days have been a mixture of feeling sick, but not sick enough to, you know - feeling sprightly and able to vacuum (what evolutionary principle is at work there?) - and spending the entire day under a quilt, on the couch, waking up only long enough to see Barefoot Contessa bbq'ing pizza in the Hamptons, then suddenly Giada slivering up zucchini before her night at the symphony, while I shift the cats' bodies aside to see the screen.

Steve likes to call my tv viewing preferences the Stirrin' and Nailin' Channels - which is entirely true. But I don't care I keep saying, I'm sick. The ultimate argument topper. I get the remote whenever I want.

But something started happening yesterday - I started feeling almost normal again.

I roasted vegetables.

Steve said he'd pick up vegetables on his way home, to have with our leftover roast chicken. But I couldn't wait. I felt good enough after making it through five hours of a workday, so I dug through our baskets, our crispers, to see what lurked there - out came potatoes, carrots and some leeks.

They were tired, grasping for their last bit of glory, their balance of life tipping closer to the compost bin than the roasting pan. But for all their faded colour and limpness, they were headed for as much glory as I could impart.

I sharpened my knife, smiled a grin for me, and started carving. I felt so at home again.

By the time Steve came in to shelter himself from the dark and the wind and the threatening blowing snowflakes, the house was filled with the deliciousness, warmth, security.

Sure. Cook with love. You know I believe that. But it's sorely tested by nausea.

The nose knows and is linked by a superhighway of senses to the stomach. I can't stand the smell of frying bacon right now (and it's the one smell that vegetarians have told me could convert them into omnivores). On the other hand, I love the taste of smoked anything - cheese, sausage. I also lusted through two oranges the other day, and then devoured pasta that I smothered in fried garlic, olive oil and fresh parsley.

In this world of nausea that teases me, the way through it is lust for food. I eat. That is glorious.

tired of waiting for the publisher to call?

Who needs a stinkin' publisher anyway? For those of us in the mood to write a cookbook, here's our chance...easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I came across this on the weekend. Tastebook.com will pull together a personalized cookbook for you - you choose the graphics, you can choose from recipes on Epicurious (they have partnered up) or your own, you choose the sections, you choose the title...deadlines, schmedlines.

Huh.

What do you think? Anyone tried it yet? Or does it strike you as a tad anal?

freezer loading

I have a weekend at hand that some would find tiresome - but not a foodblogger - and not at this time of the year.

I'm cooking.

And piling up stuff in the freezer. Simple, flavorful, single portion meals.

It all started with two basics: a pot of chicken stock that has slowly perfumed the house with comfort and security - then with tomato sauce that added spark and garlic to the room.

And these recipes both start the right way.

I had to chop an onion. I love the ritual of chopping onions. It anchors me - to that moment - to something good - to health - to providing - to pleasure.

I love how onions look at the bottom of the pot as they sweat out their essence, right before they start browning. And the sound of a wooden spoon thudding against a metal pot. Heaven.

Then the celery. One of the most underrated vegetables - essential to stock, and well, to just crunching on. My Mum will cook celery and make a white pepper sauce for it. No, really, it's good.

And carrots. If you've got that, onions, celery, carrots...you've got the essence of stock.

I've discovered one secret for me about stock - not to let it boil. Mark Bittman writes about that in How to Cook Everything - to bring it just to the boil, and then let it simmer with a bubble or three breaking the surface.

So far...so good.

Today I bring together the soup, now that the chicken stock is sitting in the fridge, layered in a blanket of fat, ready to be skimmed. With fingers crossed, I'll dig in to see if we've achieved that jelly-type stock. I feel accomplished when it glops into a pot.

Today will send my nose into ecstasy. Soup 1: Butternut squash, carrot and ginger....Soup 2: Onions, garlic, sweet potato, zucchini, red pepper, and whatever else I find in the fridge, magically pureed with a hand blender and then finished off with sprinklings of mile-long leeks I found at the grocer's yesterday.

How can life not be wonderful?

I upped the ante yesterday and spiked the nose after the stock was bubbling on its own, by cooking up some smoked sausage created by the good Mennonites of southwestern Ontario. And I teamed it with a homemade tomato sauce, that's slightly sweet and rich. They meet, compete, then settle into something more than their separate parts.

I'll try some other stuff too - I've found some recipes for single-serving frittatas (isn't that a great idea?), banana bread, vanilla cupcakes, lemon loaf - all of this meant to be freezable in single servings. Easy to grab and heat and eat.

I will not succumb to microwaveable, boxed food...nope.

If you have any suggestions for easy, freezer stuff, please let me know.

Here is the recipe for the chicken stock - the basics. Followed by the tomato sauce. If you have these in your repertoire, and your freezer - you can't be surprised by anyone for dins...you're ready.


- Chicken Stock -
adapted from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything

"Is stock essential for every soup? No. Will it improve almost any soup? Yes," - the Bittman.

3-4 pounds chicken parts, rinsed and patted dry - I bought a bag of chicken legs and wings from my favourite organic meat seller
1 cup roughly chopped onion - I don't peel it, the skin adds colour to the stock
1 cup roughly chopped carrot
1/2 cup roughly chopped celery - um...I mean this...celery:essential...seriously
1 sprig of fresh thyme - or pinch of dried thyme
1/2 bay leaf
several sprigs of fresh parsley
1tsp salt - he says more if necessary, I added a little more - and bear in mind you're still better off than with those boxed or canned stocks, salt wise. Check out a soup can next time you're in the grocery store - look at the sodium content...it will knock you over.
About 4 quarts water - I used a little less, I top the water to just cover everything.

So here are the instructions -
Put all that in a pot.

Easy huh?

Okay here are the rules:

Bring just about to a boil, then partially cover and adjust the heat so the mixture sends up a few bubbles at a time. Cook until the meat falls from the bones. Start this early enough that you can leave it on the stove to do its thing at least 3-4 hours.

The recipe says 2 hours minimum, but I think the crucial part is the meat falling off the bones, and if you can, break the bones, because by then they will have softened enough to surrender their gelatinous features to the stock.

Strain the whole mess into a big bowl. Press on the vegetables and chicken to get as much of the juice as you can. Then refrigerate it (so make sure you have room for the bowl in the fridge - and make room before you pick up the bowl - learn from my mistakes...). When the fat has solidified on the top, spoon it off. You can strain it at this point through cheesecloth, or paper towel. Then put it into individual containers and freeze if you like. It freezes very well.


Tomato Sauce - by me, honed over the years

Olive oil - enough for the bottom of the pan to get the onions started
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped (I could use more, you can use one if you're garlic shy)
1 carrot, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/2 can tomato paste
1 28 oz can of tomatoes (I've found one company that doesn't add salt to their toms)
1 tsp or more dried basil (in this case dried is better than fresh, but you could add chopped fresh basil at the end before you serve it - it really kicks it up)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp sugar

In a pot, with some olive oil, add the chopped onion over medium heat. Stir and cover with a lid. Check on them, don't let the onions brown. Using the lid and building up steam in there will slow down any browning process, as long as you don't have the burner on meltdown. Let them cook until they get translucent and creamy looking.

Add the garlic.

As soon as the garlic looks like it's starting to cook, add the other vegetables. Let them cook for a few minutes.

Add the tomato paste. Stir it into the vegetables. (You can freeze the remaining paste, don't let it get furry in the can, in the fridge, like I've done countless times)

Add the tomatoes. Break them up with a knife or wooden spoon (but step back before the tomatoes get the ultimate revenge and blow seeds all over your nice, white shirt - again learn from my mistakes).

Add the basil, salt, pepper, and sugar.

Bring to a boil and then lower the heat and let it reduce for at least 20 minutes. Taste at this point and see if you need any more salt or sugar. Then you can simmer it for a while. This is one of those sauces that definitely works the next day.

I cooked some sausage while the sauce simmered and added it in small slices at the end just before I served it. Because it was smoked, the sausage just boosted a new flavour into the whole thing - but if you don't like the taste of smoked stuff, just use whatever sausage you like.

I've put the remainder into small containers to freeze.


If you try these recipes, let me know if these work for you. Suggestions are welcome for sure...

Off to make the soup now - and fill the house with love.

Best of the day. Peace.

Nic

What more can I say?

My intrepid cousin Joff.
His penny farthing.
And the north face of Everest - the Tibetan side.

Joff's website

That's Joff on my new blog banner at the top, enjoying his fish and chips on the seafront in Southend circa 1971, with our Nan.

Power

We raised $26.5 million.

Well, okay we weren't alone.

And we weren't all human.

But we all got what it was about...

Thanks to everyone who gave.

And you still can if you want to - just click on the run for the cure link in the sidebar.

pause...

My father Bob died last week. He had been fighting cancer for a couple of years. He was 77.

He was cremated wearing trousers, his bowling shirt from his winter life, and his golf shoes from his summer life - complete with tufts of grass in the cleats from his last round.

His memorial service will be at his golf club in eastern Quebec on Friday.

He and I had a complicated, fragile relationship, rusted by neglect, watered sporadically like a weed, blossoming occasionally.

I will be taking up my 3-wood - and blasting a ball off the tee for him - well, blasting as far as my arm movement right now will allow. Plus he never saw me hit a ball anyway - so if I shank it...it'll be okay.

Dad was one of the most optimistic people I've ever met.
And he loved a laugh more than anything.
And he had the most love for the worst, bawdiest, dirtiest jokes I've ever heard.
And every meal he ate at our table he loved, and seemed to mean it.

He loved music - swing, jazz, reggae and of course classical - and requested it during his last days of lucidity. He was probably Oscar Peterson's biggest fan - and loved to recount how he bought the great Canadian pianist a drink one night in Montreal.

My very first grown-up album - an LP, a record, a vinyl disc - was from Dad. The London Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven's 9th Symphony...alle menschen werden bruder...ode to joy. When Cindy told me he was requesting music, I wanted to send my now-CD version of the symphony...but it was too late.

I remember one night at our kitchen table Dad cried when I played Nessun dorma for him, sung by the one, Pavarotti, who raced him to the grave.

It was Pavarotti's signature.

He sang it at his final performance last year. And the final words, of the final performance, of the final song that Pavarotti performed, say:

Vanish, O night! Set, stars! Set, stars!

At dawn, I will win!

I will win! I will win!

Dad - March 20, 1930 - September 17, 2007

...and that's it.

So, I pause here. I'll be back next week - drenched by the saying, when it rains, it pours.


the top photo you have seen in a previous post about my Mum - is of my parents on the summer night they met, in 1949. They were married 3 months later. When she sees this photo she still gushes...about the dress...she loved that dress.

the bottom photo is the first photo I ever remember having of me with both my parents - it was four years ago - I cooked them dinner. The picture was the idea of, and taken by, Dad's wonderful wife, Cindy.

kick it in the butt

I just registered for the Run for the Cure on September 30th, so here's a shameless request for support...

Help transform me from a breast cancer patient into a breast cancer survivor.

It's perfect. I'll have recovered enough from the surgery to do it. And I won't have started chemo yet.

So for all my foodblogging friends out there - let's show them what we're made of.

You can click here above and follow the donate to a participant...in this case meeeeee: Nicola Pulling, for the Toronto run...

There's plenty of information on the website about where the money goes - it funds researchers, like my surgeon...

Come...let's kick this bastard in the ass.

my talisman

I've been home 7 days today.

I have flowers and emails and visits and care and love in abundance - and you never know where it's going to come from. Today it came in a tiny package in the mail.

The kindness of strangers overwhelms me.

A few weeks ago, my aunt and uncle picked up John and his wife Violet, and off they went to France for the weekend. Actually they went to Dieppe.

They went because August 19th was the 65th Anniversary of the Battle of Dieppe, also known as a catastrophe.

Of the 6,000 troops that landed at Dieppe, almost 5,000 of them were Canadian.

It was a ferocious battle that went wrong from the start. And by the time they made landfall, later than they expected, in full daylight at dawn, the Germans were waiting for them. It lasted ten hours.

The official death count was 1,380. 913 of them were Canadians. Two thousand more of them were taken prisoner. And only 60 Canadians made it back to England.

Two years later, the Canadians landed at Juno Beach on June 6th, 1944. And on September 1st, it was the Canadians who liberated Dieppe.

John, who was in 3 Commando of the British forces, was at Dieppe.

A few years ago I stopped over in Paris on my way home from my trip through Asia. I made my way up to Normandy because my Aunt and Uncle were there - and I met John then. My family was with him to commemorate D-Day - because, as you might have guessed, he was a survivor of those battles as well.

Well into his 80s now, he wanted to be in Dieppe this year to honor the 17 remaining Canadian commandos who had made it back to the site of that battle.

They stood as tall as they could in their 4-score years - at attention - some slightly bent - medals on their chests - hands at their brow in salute, still living the memory.



A few days later, after they were home, my Aunt took round some photos of their trip.

They were talking about Dieppe and Canada - and John asked about my Aunt's connection to Canada. She explained that my Mum and I have lived in Canada for a long time.

And she told him I was battling my own battle against breast cancer at the moment.

He asked her if I was English. She explained I was born in Kent and moved to Canada as a baby (not alone of course, my sense of independence kicked in long after the boat landed).

He nodded.

He got up and formally presented to my Aunt a small case. Inside was a pin in the form of a tiny stiletto.

He told her he was presenting it to me.

It is the Commando Badge of Courage.

It arrived safely on Canadian shores today.

And I am wearing it where my left breast used to be.

My first battle is over - a clean, straight, knife line - no pain meds - one night in hospital.

The thing about crossing to the other riverbank is that you miss the journey. September 5th I slept my way there. It's a journey my surgeon knows too well. She ferried four of us over that day.

So, this is the other side of the river, where my doctor promised me a whole lot more life. This side is still forested. I do see a path. I just can't see the end of it - although I suppose none of us can.

For sure, this was the easy part. This was no Dieppe - in fact I'd prefer to think of it as D-Day, but I don't know how the battle will fare now.

They say a talisman is something you hold to be a charm that will avert evil and bring good fortune - I've never really had one before.

I do now. I'm averting evil, embracing fortune with all my might.

A tiny stiletto - touched by a commando who survived those bloody beaches of Dieppe and D-Day - touched by a human who knows fear and has shared his courage with me...

A talisman of kindness.

The top photo is from the wiki page on Dieppe.
The Calgary tank is from here.