On Stewing Beef

Hey, I’m back…know why?

I quit my job.

I loved my job. First staff job ever…pension…benefits…all the grown-up stuff that I haven’t had in a 20 year+ career…

But I faced one of those defining moments that comes along once in a while, when you have to test your own sense of self – really, really think about what you value and care about. I faced it. And I faced it down.

I walked. Because I could. It was stunning. In the sense that I was stunned by the whole thing.

The whole adventure, which took up a few months of this year, was only the beginning of the journey as it turns out. Freedom can be something of a burden.

My psyche decided everything was up for debate – profession, career, education, hair colour, bathroom tiles.

I’m loving, and hating, and wrestling with, the not so-easy-trip…and with all this transition around us, I could use some food I can count on. I’m kind of surprised I put stew in this category.

I’m not a stew person. I mean, as a verb, sure. I can stew. But eating it? Unless it has bourgignon in the title, not so interested.

During Hurricane Sandy, the New York Times posted an old recipe by Craig Claibourne for beef stew. And something in the impending clouds, and wind and rain whispered it was time to try a stew. 

I went up to The Meat Department on our Toronto neighbourhood’s ‘high street’. Apart from being super friendly and helpful, they know their stuff – just spend some time salivating in front of the drying, aged beef - - at various well-labeled stages of delicious degradation…don’t worry it’s behind glass. They also have a chalkboard that takes up the entire wall behind the counter. On it are the listings of the sports teams from baseball, to football to hockey – including a seriously debatable list of athletes who are not welcome in the store. Like Tim Tebow. Now, I disagree. I would so want to sell Tebow a steak…I’d probably name it after him, if he hasn’t trademarked it yet. Um...you know...the Tim TBone. Yes I did. That man’s arms looks like he knows his way with a fork – even if everyone debates his throws.

Well…when I have more time and am not trying to stock the house against impending doom, I will grab a coffee and go debate them on that list. Which reminds me - I’d better go see that Aaron Rodgers is welcome…or we’re going to have a problem.

But I was after stew.

My man had a 2-lb. chuck roast with gorgeous marbling that was going to give this stew its heart and soul. He wrapped it in paper and handed it over. I slid it next to my bottle of chianti classico. And leaning into the wind, and the dark, and the now epic rain, I headed home.

I cut the recipe in half. I also made this gluten free for me celiac husband…so no flour to be seen…but note that I’ve told you where and how the original recipe uses it. This will serve 4.

2-lb chuck roast, cut into 2” cubes
1/8 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
½ tbsp. garlic, chopped finely
1 cup onions, chopped coarsely  
3 tbsp. rice flour (recipe calls for 3 tbsp. flour)   
2 cups red wine
1 cup water
2 whole cloves
½ bay leaf (I used a small one)
¼ tsp. thyme
3 sprigs parsley
3 large carrots, peeled

Brown the meat in a large skillet by heating the oil first and adding the beef in a layer. Salt and pepper the meat. Two things to know anytime you’re making a stew or stew-like meal: make sure the beef cubes are dry (I use paper towels) and don’t crowd the pan – if necessary brown the meat in batches. Turn the pieces to get them nice and brown – this should take about 10 minutes.

Add the garlic and onions and cook for another 10 minutes.

Sprinkle the rice flour over the meat and stir in until it’s coated evenly (or use regular flour).

Ahhh the best part…add the wine. Stir and let it all boil and thicken.

Then stir in the water. (OK first time I made this, I added all the liquid at once – my bad – another thing to know: read recipes carefully all the way through before you even start cutting an onion…Given that I couldn’t use flour to thicken the sauce, I ended up making a slurry of cornstarch and water to help the thickening process along).

Add the cloves, bay leaf, thyme and parsley. Cover and simmer for one hour.

Cut the carrots into whatever size you like. The recipe calls for them to be one inch and to be put in the pot for 30 minutes…but they took too long to cook for me (I ended up pulling them out of the pot and throwing them in the microwave to force the issue). So judge for yourself how long you think your carrots will take – and add them to the pot.

Serve…ours went into the shallow bowls along with a heap of mashed potatoes.

It was the perfect anchor on a day of a horrible storm, in a time of stormy change…just what I needed. I went back for more the next day and oh, even better…like life...fingers crossed.

A note

I need to write about how I’m feeling – it ain’t narcissism, well mostly not – it’s about the surprise I’m feeling at how I’m feeling.

And because I now have three friends fighting cancer, all of them in their 40s, and all of them - I’m guessing here, since it’s different for everyone - trying to wrestle their emotions and bodies back into balance, to keep a grip on who they are.

I wanted to send a message from the other side of healing.

One of the most difficult feelings I felt when I was diagnosed with breast cancer was that the me that was me, was over – I grieved the loss of normal – the worry of being late somewhere, or losing my favourite scarf, or burning my toast. That was done.

I got tired of not going a week without some type of doctor’s appointment. I hated knowing the terminology that was now embedded in me, literally – a PICC line, steroids, epirubicin, WBC (white blood cells) – I hated getting tattooed for radiation treatments, I hated getting into the routine of blood tests for my oncologist, and that was beaten only by the idea of having an oncologist. And a surgeon. And a radiation oncologist. I loved my nurses but I hated having to know them by name. I grew to know my oncology nurse’s phone number by heart, not by choice.

I didn’t want to be treated like a patient. And it’s understandable that people do, especially when you lose your hair – in fact in the last half of six treatments you lose your eyebrows and eyelashes – and that’s when you really look like a cancer patient. I didn’t feel like one on the inside, but on the outside I looked like a barren landscape. I also lost my nose hair, which I’d never had a close relationship with, until it was gone and my life through winter consisted of whole boxes of Kleenex, because there was nothing to keep my nose from running. Funnily enough, my doctors treated me the most normally – because this was their normal.

I worried about Steve and I and our new life after cancer.

And I worried about the responsibility of having a new life after cancer.

I worried more about what if it came back?

I still worry about that – who wouldn’t? But last week marked the third anniversary of my surgery and I don’t know how I got here. It just happened. Life, I mean.

I still don’t feel normal enough to freak out about burnt toast, or an unmade bed, although I have mounted an unrelenting campaign for a dishwasher, because I hate washing dishes. That’s normal. And I hate meetings. That's uber normal. I have hot flashes now, that's a new kind of normal. My hair is back and once I was through my curly poodle new hair, it went back to "normal". I see my oncologist once every six months, my surgeon only once a year.

I also fell into beauty. That was one of the gifts of being ill. And it didn't fade when I was through. I see beauty everywhere. I want to devour it and coat my insides with it. And I love to share it.

And on the train coming home tonight, from my extremely busy job, with my extremely nice team, I thought…I still think about cancer probably every day…but it’s not choking me like it did. It drifts and leaves. Time is remarkable. I’m different. That’s okay.

And when I got home, I was happy to see yes, I had made the bed this morning.

So I think I do have the hope of normal. We all do.

Summer Slice

Seen on our tree-lined street one hot, humid evening last week - Dad riding the bike. Daughter, about five, in the seat behind. He riding them home from the park. She singing her lungs out: "You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you, you're just like heaven to touch"...head bobbing from side to side as she let out her song. As he went by Dad said, shrugging his shoulders, "she loves to sing." And on the chorus, Dad joined in and they belted it out as they floated around the corner of our block: "I love you baby and if it's quite alright I need you baby........."

Through the dirt and grime

Tomorrow I will feel spring. March came in like a lamb and left like a lamb chop. It spent 31 days caressing us and coaxing us into believing spring was coming. It’s here, and here early. Fire the groundhog – he was wrong.

Toronto starts bubbling as soon as the winter days get noticeably longer – by the end of January you can see just the remnants of day trying to hang on at 6pm – that’s my first trip wire. I start watching the sunset times on the weather network. I obsessively check the long-term 14-day forecast for hope – a Chinook from the west – a warm front from the Caribbean – whatever.

But it’s false labour pains – because then comes February. And it’s long. All 28 days of it. My next sign of hope comes from the birds in the morning – the sparrows that hide like spies in the bushes along the sidewalk – I’ve learned to look for their droppings on the branches, they don’t wander far. They’re brave little souls when they’re invisible. They’re heartier than most other creatures since they stay all winter. But by March they’re too busy trying to get laid to notice humans within a foot of them. They yammer and jaw and fight and hiss at one another. I’m sure it all works out in the end – a kind of effective UN for bird brains. Then come the cardinals…the red-wing blackbirds and the bluejays.

Finally out come the humans with the café tables and chairs and the pub patios fill with patrons cradling a beer in their gloved hands in the warm sun, willing the vitamin D into them.




 
And then...this usually happens...





But not tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m getting my vitamin D naturally – on the deck. Tomorrow I will open the doors and windows and send the air of the last year packing. Things are ready for cleaning. For starting over. Rebirth.

We’ve had our rough patches this winter. My in-laws tested their mortality a few ways. During one epic battle my mother-in-law had with pneumonia and compression fractures in her spine, my father-in-law had spinal surgery, and I developed walking pneumonia. And as usual when tough times come, you find out what people are made of – and Steve was heroic in his care.

A friend, Erin, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time as I was, and then re-diagnosed last year with tumours in the brain, found out in the winter the doctors had no more tricks to pull. She went into palliative care in the new year. She died March 5^th. She was 50.

Every year we met the weekend after Thanksgiving at the cottage of a mutual friend, our Marney. All women from all over life. And we set goals, which I’ve written about before.  

Erin’s goal was a roll over from the year before – a full head of hair. Marney was with Erin throughout the last days – taking her food, feeding her, playing music, talking, laughing – honoring her friendship with a woman she has known for more than 25 years. She reported in her email when Erin died that she looked beautiful – she achieved her goal – a full head of hair.

I’ve been working on what makes me tick. That’s been hard. Because sometimes that machinery is buried deep under calluses of life, of denial and survival. I’ve loved the work. It’s settled my jittery soul. I remember my goal when I started was quiet confidence – a far off dream of something I think I could conceive…but not really. My work life has thrown some tests of that hard, personal work my way, and didn’t break me. And that makes me feel like I’ve cleaned house. And that I’m not done.

I said that quietly…and with confidence.

I knew this would be a year of loss – I’m nursing a 17-year-old cat with kidney failure who is right now giving me the “I ignore evil cat owners” look by keeping her back to me, her head erect and ears turned a little backward to listen for me. That’s because I just injected her with a bag of saline. The things we do for love. She doesn’t see it that way. So there may be more loss – that is part of it all.

But I also feel a great sense of hope. Of grabbing the reins. Of owning whatever path I’m on. I’ve stumbled around sometimes wondering why I haven’t felt an epiphany with my recovery – that I’ve just gotten on with it. That I missed something. But I think I’m blind to the signs. This has been no whiz bang lightning flash epiphany – I think this is one of those slow burning epiphanies. I think I prefer it – because I trust it more.

That is the great gift of spring – the warmth of the sun on your face, the crocuses blooming against a south wall, the rising excitement in your stomach, the need to believe.

Um...

A food printer. No, seriously. It prints food for you.
Thanks to Inhabitat for the story.

The lives I've imagined - the other me's

A piece of me lives on the Oregon coast
A piece of me lives across an ocean
A piece of me plays the cello and piano
A piece of me has no fear
A piece of me lives in wide open space
A piece of me grows food in California
A piece of me looks at the world askance from a distance
A piece of me sees myself in everyone
A piece of me is learning about the shadows
A piece of me loves pink
A piece of me loves college football
A piece of me sings like a funk diva
A piece of me dances in rhyme with nature
A piece of me knows me through and through
A piece of me cooks for others
A piece of me has a big table
A piece of me has three kids
A piece of me is overrun with cats and dogs and horses
A piece of me has a house with a yard
A piece of me can afford to look after our parents
A piece of me lives on the ocean
A piece of me loves winter
A piece of me speaks six languages
A piece of me makes jam
A piece of me bakes bread
A piece of me climbs mountains
A piece of me explores…

life cycle

Fall is here. In breathtaking strokes of colour, streaked by a sun that is harsh as it lowers itself in the sky. The haze that burns the sky white in summer is blown out. The blue through to space is clean and pure and ready for winter.

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the fall but Canada.

It was the mark of fall – the rocky outcrop, Lake Joseph, the Muskoka chairs, the wine, the beer, the caesars, the snacks and handful of women who trek up to the cottage the weekend after Thanksgiving every year to laugh, drink, laugh, eat, and laugh. And eat.

The cottage itself is a testament to another time. It sits on stilts over the water, blending the land and lake. Its glory is fading. The porch off the living room faces east. In the morning, we were sitting nursing cups of coffee in the cold, the water looked like a basket weaver’s work – diagonal lines crossing through each other in perfect sequence. Looking to the east, as the sun was pulling up over the tree line, the water let go its heat and mist rose…and I'm not kidding, a loon cried out far away. Slowly the other women followed the light and pulled chairs into the sun and our day was begun.

We have been going up there every year of this decade at least…and it marks our lives each year. Our host and her former husband had wild parties up there but after their break up the weekend became a way to connect with her women friends.

We come from all walks of life. There are a few tv people, a couple of teachers, a medical administrator, an adventure company owner, an executive with a non profit, an outdoor educator/guide, and we’re deep into or on the cusp of middle age. We are smart and funny - even without the wine.

Most of us only see each other for this weekend – and every year there’s something new – a marriage, a baby, a career change, travel, illness, recovery, discovery.

However, the price of admission - apart from closing up the cottage for the owners on the Sunday - is our host makes us set goals for the coming year. And we have to answer for them next year.

The goals are as varied as we are in personality. One of my favourites this year was Kathleen who wants to find her inner princess. To treat herself well…so some are about self improvement, others want to play the ukulele, one woman wants to find a way to help homeless animals, and Marney is registered for the Ironman Canada triathlon for her 50th birthday, and Erin just wants her hair back.

She looked at me saying, “I want my hair to look like that. It’s not fair,” she said. I flinched inside – it hurt. And it’s true. My hair is back in full swing and gradually growing down to my shoulders and there’s no way to change the fairness of that. Whatever the future holds.

We talked about our year – we toasted Erin who wants her hair back…she is battling recurrent cancer with everything she’s got. And holding her own thank you very much. We toasted her for just being here, when at the beginning of the year we all wondered what 2009 held for her. Jennie lost an employee/friend in a horrific accident while he was on the job. It was also unfair. She sobbed through the telling with such genuine affection for him and guilt for what happened - and she said that he lived by his own rules, he knew who he was…all that at 26. So many live so long never able to say that. Living by your own rules, your own standards…that is quite an achievement in a young life. Carol jumped back into the freelance world after her job collapsed from under her and she’s stitching together her living – single, mortgage holder, making it work. These are strong, remarkable women.

I personally hate goal setting. I’ve always resisted it – I don’t like the set up for disappointment. I’ve done it over and over and over, and don’t get any better at it. I’m already pretty good at beating myself up so I don’t need another missed goal to point out my flaws.

Actually, to be honest, on these cottage weekends, I have always achieved my goals – but that’s because I’ve managed to set my goal posts so wide I couldn’t miss (well couldn’t miss anything other than the point of the exercise, of course).

Although the gods have a sense of humour: six years ago I set my goal low – as always – it was to have a date. One. In the next year. The following October the women’s weekend was two weeks after my wedding. Total overachiever. Total. Yes.

So last year I went practical. I set the goal of writing up the collection of recipes that we have cooked over the years. Because the food has been remarkable. And of course I didn’t get it done. I put out an APB to the women a few weeks ago asking them to at least help me remember all the dishes – and many came to my rescue…but it wasn’t done.

The morning we drove up I came up with a perfect roundtable logic of success…while I had set my goal to create the cookbook, my actual clandestine goal was to fail at the goal…since I always achieve my goal, I wanted to see what this failure thing was all about…or so went my explanation that night. The goal keeper looked back at her notes from last year and said, “No you didn’t fail. You said you’d start collecting the recipes. And you've started.” So I failed at failing. Or something.

We were fourteen at table on Saturday night. It was cold – even for this normally cold weekend, the thermometer couldn’t really rouse itself into double digits. So the fireplace in the big, old dining room was lit, the huge table set (it can sit 14 comfortably).

Wendy and I got to work in the kitchen. This seems to be the year to try a Julia Child recipe. So that's what we did. Coq au vin – and browning enough chicken for 14 does not make for a happy smoke detector. That picture of us is just after we smoked out the entire kitchen.

But Julia is a classic for a reason - that chicken stew was pretty damned delicious. We served it with salad and boiled new potatoes in parsley butter.

Now I found the recipe in a book I am totally enjoying, American Food Writing, by Molly O’Neill. It has everything – essays on food by Thomas Jefferson to Walt Whitman to David Sedaris. And recipes for the likes of ketchup, peach leather (from 1867), or cranberry sauce (from 1901), even Thomas Jefferson's ice cream. And of course at the end of a piece by Julia Child about the making of her tv show, Molly reproduced the Julia’s Coq au Vin recipe.

It was perfect. The weekend and the food - warming to the soul, deep and personal. That’s goal enough I think.


Coq au Vin – a la Julia Child -

We doubled these amounts to serve 14, browning the chicken in two pans, much to the consternation of the smoke detector.

3-4 oz chunk of lean bacon
2 tb butter
2 ½ to 3 lbs. cut up frying chicken (we used boneless thighs, but I've made it before with bone in and most people swear by the extra flavour the bones impart)
½ tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

¼ cup cognac

3 cups young, full-bodied red wine (burgundy, Beaujolais, chianti)
1-2 cups brown chicken stock
½ tbsp tomato paste
2 cloves mashed garlic
¼ tsp thyme
1 bay leaf

12 to 24 brown-braised onions
½ lb. sautéed mushrooms

3 tb flour
2 tb softened butter
a saucer
a rubber spatula
a wire whip

Remove the rind and cut the bacon into lardons (rectangles ¼ inch and 1 inch long). Simmer for 10 minutes in 2 quarts of water. Rinse in cold water. Dry.

Sauté the bacon slowly in hot butter until it is very lightly browned. Remove to a side dish.

Dry the chicken thoroughly. Brown it in the hot fat.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Return the bacon to the casserole with the chicken. Cover and cook slowly for 10 minutes, turning the chicken once.

Uncover, and pour in the cognac. Ignite the cognac with a match. Shake the casserole back and forth for several seconds until the flames subside.

Pour the wine into the casserole. Add just enough stock to cover the chicken. Stir in the tomato paste, garlic, and herbs. Bring to the simmer. Cover and simmer slowly for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the chicken is tender and its juices run a clear yellow when the meat is pricked with a fork. Remove the chicken to a side dish.

While the chicken is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms.

Simmer the chicken cooking liquid in the casserole for a minute or two, skimming off fat. Then raise heat and boil rapidly, reducing the liquid to about 2 ¼ cups. Correct seasoning. Remove from heat, and discard bay leaf.

Blend the butter and flour together into a smooth paste (beurre manie). Beat the paste into the hot liquid with a wire whip. Bring to the simmer, stirring, and simmer for a minute or two. The sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon lightly.

Arrange the chicken in the casserole, place the mushrooms and onions around it, and baste with the sauce. If the dish is not to be served immediately, film the top of the sauce with stock or dot with small pieces of butter. Set aside uncovered. It can wait indefinitely.

Shortly before serving, bring to the simmer, basting the chicken with the sauce. Cover and simmer slowly for 4 to 5 minutes, until the chicken is hot through.

Serve from the casserole, or arrange on a hot platter. Decorate with sprigs of parsley.

an era fades

Conde Nast announced it will end almost 70 years of food history. Gourmet magazine the oldest food publication in the U.S. has folded...and even in this era of fading print...I'm still stunned that we're losing such an institution.

how far we've come

Progress.

Here is a recipe from The United States of Arugula by David Kamp. I finally indulged in a paperback copy. And I love the cover.

I read the book a couple of years ago (I got it from the library) and since then I've remembered this salad recipe he quotes from the Chicago Tribune of 1937...I doubt you're ready for this...it's kind of like food trauma.

The Lacy Valentine Salad: "marshmallows, apricots, maraschino cherries, dates, celery and canned grapefruit suspended in gelatin and garnished with curly endive and mayonnaise piping..."

Progress...

sausage, the link to earth

I tripped over a thought last night while eating dinner - dinner that Steve cooked and I inhaled after a work week of billowing stress - I'm removed from the food.

What I mean is, I ate my bowl of chili, crunched my nacho chips, drank my drink, put it down and said thanks.

But I didn't make the dinner. I didn't put any of the tastes and textures together. I haven't made dinner all week. I felt no synergy - no connection to the meal that was greater than the sum of the ingredients. I just consumed. I was removed from the love of it.

And it was unsatisfying. Eating by rote. And it bothered me to my core.

I felt disconnected from the earth.

So I fixed it. I was dissecting the fridge of leftovers this evening and found some smoked Mennonite sausage that needed to be used up.

I was drawn back to Jamie Oliver's book Jamie at Home - who else would know how to gussy up a sausage?

On a cool September night, after a gorgeous, intensely sunny day at the Brick Works farmer's market, this hit the spot.

Adapted from "Sweet cherry tomato and sausage bake", Jamie at Home, I've cut the recipe to serve two

6 small red potatoes, quartered, Jamie doesn't use potatoes at all
1 lb cherry tomatoes, I used a slightly larger version
sprigs of rosemary, thyme and bay leaf, I also used fresh sage
1/2 tbsp dried oregano
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2-4 sausages, the full portion of the recipe calls for 12
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Toss the potatoes in olive oil, and place on one side of a roasting pan. Put a sprig or two of the rosemary and thyme among the potatoes.
Toss the tomatoes in oil as well and place them on the other side of the roasting pan. Place the herbs, including the bay leaf, amongst them as well.
Sprinkle the garlic over all.
Place the sausages on top of the tomatoes. Drizzle everything with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper it all.
Bake in the oven for about 3o minutes. Turn the sausages to the other side and put back in oven for another 15-20 minutes. I made this with already cooked, leftover sausage and some caramelized onion which I threw in the pan as well for the last half hour. Check out how it's all doing and leave for another 10 minutes if you need to.

I plated the potatoes, topped it with a few of the roasted tomatoes, sliced up the sausage (which was leftover remember), and mixed in the caramelized onions. The sweetness of the roasted tomatoes is so beautiful, I almost teared up...and felt very much back on earth...

Now if you like, Jamie says you can take out the sausages once they're done (and the potatoes in this case) and put the roasting pan on top of the stove, cook down the tomato juices a little bit and thicken them. I didn't do that, but I'll bet it's fantastic.

the new portuguese table

Look what was waiting for me when I got home...Ola baby...Como esta...and all that. I'm digging into it now...it looks beautiful...as David wrote/commanded in the front cozinha bem!

Speaking of Ice Cream

Before summer runs away...There is a creamery to the east of us called St. Clair Ice Cream – that sells the biggest, humungousest, gargantuan balls of ice cream. Steve remembers going there as a kid and getting a head-sized orb on a cone. A frozen planet. He said it was absolutely ridiculous. So we headed east. We lumbered back to the car under the weight of two "small" ice cream cones. We were gob smacked at the size, the weight, the mass, volume, density, gravitational pull these things had.
On the sidewalk were two young kids – about 8 and 10 – car door open, Mum in the driver’s seat, warning them away from the car, holding stacks of napkins. I could see why. The young boy was giggling uncontrollably looking at his arm, knowing he was fighting the good fight, but he had lost. He was solidly coated from the fingers up to the elbow in mint green. It looked like a glove that was dripping onto the sidewalk - which made him laugh all the more, which gave the ice cream time to melt more. His older sister saw us coming along with our ice creams and said, “Are they CRAZY?” bending under the weight of her cone. “We ordered a SMALL.”
Their universes collided – they got something they wanted and couldn’t handle it or make any sense of it. I don't remember the ice cream itself, but that was the most joyful ice cream moment I’ve ever had…

Summer and the Spit

Labour Day weekend is always tinged with sadness. When you’re saying goodbye to summer it takes some work not to feel a grief creeping toward you. The sun has swept southward in the sky and now comes fully in the window, bathing our sofa in rays during the morning – much to our old cat’s delight. Three trees in the Don Valley have decided to try on red. It’s still hot in the sun, but you need sleeves in the shade. We turn the lights on so much earlier.

Toronto got the Labour Day weekend of all Labour Day weekends weather wise. It was gorgeous. And we earned it.

We headed down to what’s called the Leslie St. spit this morning – as we’ve done many times over the summer. In its weekday life, dump trucks trundle down the paved road that heads off shore, to add to the re-bar and bricks and concrete and old granite that had a life and now are the foundation of new land.

Nature is working as partner in this. The trees have taken over, the marshes, the grasses all filling in what we don’t want to use anymore.

The spit, in its weekend and holiday life, becomes a park. Five kilometers from the entrance to the lighthouse at the end – five kilometers of growth…and cyclists and rollerbladers, runners and walkers.

The wind was coming off the lake today in powerful, cool gusts. The boats were conservative in their sails. The monarch butterflies hunkered down on all the purple flowers they could find, the thistles, the cornflowers. The golden rod was at its beautiful height and everywhere. The cormorants are so happy on the spit it’s one of the biggest nesting colonies in North America.

We’ve seen snakes and rodents and great blue herons hunting, and even a beaver in the inlet pond. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a beaver in the wild before…if he climbs out of his stick house and looks to the north he’d see the skyline of Canada’s largest city right there. But I don’t think he cares.

This year with the moderate temperatures and loads and loads of rain, everything looks lush and beautiful and at its prime of life. In a place that is a hopeful place.

And this weekend was definitely a summer looking for the weather Oscar.

It was a perfect end to summer - a 10-kilometre walk, on a perfect day, through a construction site that nature is cleaning up…So when it came to dinner I went up to the corner vegetable market to see what they had. I picked up local radishes, green beans, some lemons, some tomatoes, green onions and headed home. Oh, and salted cashews…to go with the bottle of wine I intended to open while preparing the summer daze dinner.

Steve marinated a piece of flank steak I had bought at Fresh from the Farm on Saturday. He consulted the Cook’s Illustrated marinating article, which had been marinating under the coffee table for a while. He poured molasses, soy sauce, garlic, water, olive oil, a dash of sesame oil and chives from the garden into a plastic bag, stabbed the meat liberally with a knife, then put the steak in the bag for a lovely bath. For an hour …90 mins max. Then he barbequed it on the grill.

Meanwhile, glass of wine in hand, and bowl of cashews on the table (I love cashews), I made a salad of the tomatoes. I chopped them into small chunks, added some chopped scallions, red pepper and lots of fresh basil from my pot outside – I doused it all in good olive oil (brought directly from Italy by my dear grace Naomi).

I roasted the red potatoes I had in fresh rosemary, crunchy salt, and black pepper. I sliced an onion and caramelized it in a skillet. Then I trimmed and steamed the green beans for only a minute or two and plunged them in ice water to hold their gorgeous green (and I stared into them - because the colour makes me think of what Ireland must look like). Once the potatoes were nicely roasted I pulled them out, threw them into the pan with the onions and added the beans, which I’d cut in half. Once it was all cooled down, I threw over a little balsamic vinegar and finished it off with a little more olive oil.

The radishes were large. And that has meant only one thing to me lately – crunch and no taste. No peppery shake of the head, no holding my forehead as the radish does its thing. Just crunch. So I decided to make a Vietnamese dressing for them. I sliced the radishes thinly, and poured over them a dressing I made with fish sauce, cider vinegar, lemon (should be lime, but the lemons were cheap), garlic, sugar, and shredded carrot. And I let them bathe together while everything else was cooking…They were fantastic.

It was our Summer Daze dinner. And while September moves us on toward autumn, and I love September more than any other month, this Labour Day weekend will be in the books as a great beauty, bringing summer to its full height. The summer of 09 went out leaving them wanting more…

*Pic is from here and here's more on the Leslie Street spit - if you need it!

Then there are those you never meet...

The linguine did it for me. Dripping with fresh tomatoes, basil and brie...then the fruit-stuffed loin of pork drizzled with a mixture of madeira and molasses...then the famous chicken marbella gussied up with olives and capers and garlic...and the stuffing for Thanksgiving.

Sheila Lukins has been in my kitchen in many times - channeled through The Silver Palate Cookbook. As I've noted before, the spine is now broken in a few places, it's stained on many pages, the signs of a classic...

Sheila's recipes have become part of my home, nestled in the kitchen, helping to feed my favourite people and make them happy...I think she'd be glad to know we ate well by her. I'm grateful.

Rest in peace.

Kindness

I remember reading in The Female Brain a few years ago about neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine's patient who had a small daughter. The mother had always, always, always fought the gender stereotypes. The little girl didn't get dolls, she got trucks. No fairies, no princesses, no cinderella...and one day her mother walked in her room to find her daughter holding her favourite fire truck. She had it wrapped in a blanket and was cradling it like a baby. And she was saying, "poor truckie." Truckie was sick.

Sometimes you can't beat your way past nature and the need to nurture.

I was reminded of that at work today when my friend Karen told me about her son's adventure a couple of years ago while walking along the street. They had stopped to watch a digger - there is a universal law that boys shall be mesmerized by anything that moves tons of earth: diggers, dump trucks, steam shovels...all power, all the time.

The little one was in his stroller and he caught the digger operator's eye. He called out to Karen to ask if her son loves diggers...and when she said oh yeah, big time, he pulled something out from beside him and threw it in the hole. Then he manoeuvered the big shovel, cradled the object in the shovel's bucket, and brought it up to the surface. He carefully placed it in front of Karen's boy. Then using the shovel's back side, nudged it toward him. To top it all off, an actual policeman came over to pick it up and give it to the little one. It was a boxed Bob the Builder digger- new, wrapped. As Karen said, 'that man has no idea what he did that day.' Her son was over the moon. He ate all his dinner with his Bob the Builder digger and slept that night with it on his chest.

One construction worker beating up nature with his own nurturing.

Go Michael Go...

Routine - comfortable or boring?

Having a routine has such a smelly reputation. People who used to be attached to their routines were pegged as reliable, dependable, predictable and it was a good thing. People who follow their routines now get pegged as boring, unimaginative, and gasp, predictable. No, actually they go further than that, they get pegged as crazy, nuttier than a shithouse rat. Inevitably when the words will whisper out: OCD – obsessive/compulsive disorder…

I’ve noticed over the last few years we make things either catastrophic (I hate that soup, I could kill that guy, it’s a disaster) or pathological (he must have xxx syndrome, yyy disorder, zzz genetics). We have no in between and we’re thankful when our lives careen somewhere in the middle.

It kind of pisses me off frankly. Why can’t people have their routines? It brings comfort to some.
I have a friend or two who like their routines – or have their thing. And they have to be quiet about it. One eats the same salad everyday, from the same place. They recognize her voice on the phone now when she calls to pre-order it. Another crosses the street only at crosswalks – no jaywalking – now it seems quite sensible given that she was hit as a child running out into the street…but no matter how quiet the street, she’ll wander the extra way up the sidewalk to get to the other side. And me…I run home from work and I run home the same way every time. It may seem boring, routine, but I time it. And then I can see if I’m getting stronger and faster or older and slower. You may guess which way I’m starting to lean on that one…

My sudden defense of routine behaviour is also a sign of age - another step on the path to old fartedness, along with my sudden fascination with birdwatching and lack of interest in bars and nightclubs - and it's also just pure defensiveness. I noticed during my staycation this summer that I have my places, my things, my ways. I have two cups of tea with breakfast and it’s not over til I do. By 11am my brain and stomach are working in league to push me to the coffee maker. And it has to be the same kind (Kicking Horse coffee – the Kick Ass strong blend and no I don’t get paid anything to say that). Steve and I will wander on a hot afternoon (although this July we’ve been waiting for a hot afternoon) up to the Dairy Queen about 20 minutes up the road from our place (which is complete justification especially with the return trip) and we’ll sit and watch the world pass by on the sloping road down into the valley that overlooks the city. Not the best ice cream, but I’ve had worse. And the setting isn’t bad.

Twenty years ago my gang of friends went to a middle eastern restaurant in the middle east of Toronto (east, but not as far east as the city now wanders – a friend’s friend said that once) – we went there a lot. Okay we went there so much we’re fairly sure we paid for the family to move to the other end of the droopy strip mall and expand two store widths. We spent all our time there. We were university students and the coffee was good and the food was even better. And the family that owned the joint came to know us all by name.

The restaurant is still there – though the family has moved on (I believe they sold it to a couple of their cooks), and so has the old gang of friends. I don’t see them anymore. And I stopped going there until a few years ago. The family must have given the cooks all the recipes – the hummus, the baba ghanoush, the tabouleh, the labaneh, all from scratch, all still killer good.

My Mum, who can never remember the names of the dips always sits down, looks at me with excitement and says, “so, are we going to have all the bits in the middle?” And I don’t know why but we order all the bits in the middle (the dips), then we order chicken kabob sandwiches, or the lovely lamb kabob sandwich – even though their beef shawarma looks fantastic. And we don't stop eating until we're hurting...the tahini and onions and tomatoes and parsley all melding together with the meat…the pita soft, warm and fresh...all wrapped in a foil diaper. The diaper I learned very early in my middle eastern eating career, should never, ever be removed without putting one on the outside of your pants. Or you’ll be sorry. I’ve warned and wagged my finger at newbies and watched them get drenched in a combo of tahini, meat juice and tomatoes.

They even have mahalabia – which I don’t eat often, I just love saying it. Ma – ha – la – bia…

So that was our routine – Two three four times a week we’d all pull up in our assorted cars and chow down. So now you know why I have to run.

Now here’s the best part. We’d grab a table – we’d order our bits in the middle and the waitress would bring divine crunchiness on a plate: pickled turnips and hot peppers. We’d dive in and have to ask for more – in fact they just started bringing us two plates.

We went to the restaurant a few weeks ago – Mum, Steve and I – during a shopping day. And it had been so long that I actually forgot about the turnips. And when they showed up – I grinned and said…oh…yeah. And we chomped down. Crunchy, tart, beautiful. I had to figure out how these were made – so when we got home I dug online and into some books here (my cookbooks now have their own home on bookshelves in the bedroom – not my favourite place but better than on top of our cupboards where they got both greasy and threatened to collapse the hardwood cupboards) I morphed a few recipes into one. And it was close...

It was easy and quick. And so was the eating a week later. Steve kept going to the fridge and forking a few down. They’re gone now. But I’m definitely going to make them again. And again. And again. Like a routine - comforting and rooting us to our joys...

Pickled Turnips – adapted from a few sources (see my updated recipe - the restaurant was generous enough to share it with me)

2 lbs turnips
1 raw beet
½ lemon
1 ½ heaped tbsp salt
6 cups water

Wash the turnips and the beet. Don’t peel. Slice the turnips and the beetroot about ¼ “ thick. Sprinkle the beet slices with the juice from the lemon and then lay them in the bottom of a jar (I sterilized the jar). Put the turnip in on top of the beet and pack them in. Add the salt to the water and stir then fill the jar. Seal and keep cool for about four or five days.

The beets slowly colour the turnips a beautiful pink.
The recipes call for waiting a week – but we found them a little on the soggy side by waiting that long. And I put them in the fridge once we’d opened them.

What summer feels like in this house

I put the duvet away. We’ve turned the ceiling fan on in the bedroom. The bay windows in the kitchen stay open all the time to catch the breeze in the alley. The bay window overlooks a brick wall, but lets in light. The old doors all stick a little. Dampness rises from the old floor boards. There is thermal lag here – the bricks hold on to their winter cold for a long time and this year into July, but slowly it’s warming up in here. The house plants have escaped to the deck full time. The earth has tilted enough to take the sun’s rays out of our living room. They’ll fill the room come December when the earth tilts back. The basement bathroom is now earning its nickname: the swamp. I washed the tile floor about an hour ago, it might be dry by the end of the week. And I fight an ongoing battle with moldy grout.

Many years ago my friend’s little daughter was in the bathroom, on the toilet, deep in thought. This was her first visit to this house.

It was built in her great grandmother’s era, when flappers were the rage, when the world was living the heady champagne daze before economic collapse, actually in the same years my mother was born. It has triple brick walls, made in the valley just to the west of us. It has old casement windows that complain with the age of many winters, and old oak floors – narrow bands of wood so worn you can see the basement light in some sections. But it feels safe and solid and like home – even though we rent. We love this place.

As she did her business, Kayla considered everything around her. She made her pronouncement: “Mummy? I ike (no l’s yet) Auntie Nicky’s cottage.”

Kayla went outside to play. Her Mum told me what she’d said. A cottage? How cool is that? Little ones like that don’t lie (she soon told me my teeth were yellow). But while she was in my good books, I glowed, because this is like a cottage - it has the spirit of peace that a cottage has.

And in the cool, slow rise from spring, the poppies and peonies have exploded in their beauty and wildness, the roses quickly coming in to take their place, the astounding clematis has crawled up the deck again covering it in purple, and the marshmallows have flowered like a bright laugh. And when I hear the trees rustle with wind and I sit here sipping my morning coffee at the desk by the door looking out over the deck, and I see so many colours of green rising in their lushness, cushioning our presence in a big city, I feel pretty lucky. Grout be damned.

Peony picture from wikipedia.

Stunned

So you're standing at the stove. Cooking for your kids. Cleaning the house. Keeping the career going. Running them to t-ball. Writing quarterly reports. Helping with their homework. Loving them to bits...and feeling just a little off...like a dream that lost focus...like milk just on the date of expiry...and that question that you don't want to let in hovers there...how did I get here?

Here's a shout out for my friend Karen Bridson's new book - Stunned

toasted tweet

I jumped into the twitterenzy a couple of weeks ago and yesterday started following Ruth Reichl on twitter. This morning when I got to work she sent out a tweet to say she was in Toronto - she was in the car on her way in from the airport and she wrote it seemed like a good place to live and eat. Which is particularly generous given she was on the road from the airport, maybe she was looking down at her briefing notes.

Anyway, you can reply to these things you know. And when Ruth Reichl tweets in your town the day after you start following her, it feels personal.

So i hit reply.

140 characters of welcome and wit. I typed. I erased. I typed. I erased. I caved.

Some are masters at it. Sir Ken Robinson is a good follow on twitter. He wrote the other day, also while on his way from an airport, this one in Vancouver , "Driving to Whistler. Asked driver if he is collecting me tomorrow. He said it will be him or someone else. An exact summary of the options."

Clearly I have to sharpen the knife edge of my wit to plunge into this.

Later Ruth tweeted that her lunch was good. phew. Toronto has its talents and I think food is one of them.

I'm tweeted out...

yum?

Annie added to the natural partners, perfect pairings, fred and ginger list:

potatoes and vinegar

and another from a family friend: peanut butter and onion - red onion apparently...anyone? anyone?

And I thought of another two during my run home - no coincidence...pizza with pineapple, and french fries and mayo...

Perfect Partners

And another thing - that's Fred and Gingery:
Roast beef and horseradish

And another while we're on the roast thing:
Roasted potatoes with rosemary

And the poetry:
Strawberries with thick, whipped cream

fred and ginger

Today Toronto is soggy. Most rain in one day for the last 60 years. Which of course is the day I took off to burn some overtime. Which means the bathroom got cleaned, the laundry got done, the kitchen counters were finally cleared, and the cats got more attention...and snacks.

I had a quick lunch, pickies...a carrot or two, a boiled egg, some cheese, some little grape tomatoes, some spring onion...and as I munched I noticed just how good some things are together. Like some couples...not others...but some.

So I thought I'd think of some food pairings that are as natural as Fred and Ginger. Now my list is certainly geocentric, so I'd love you guys to add some too...especially some you'd never think of...

1) old cheddar cheese and spring onion
2) spring onion and hard boiled eggs
3) egg salad and dill pickles
4) dill pickles and smoked meat sandwiches
5) tomatoes and basil
6) fresh figs and blue cheese
7) cookies and cold, cold milk
8) fries and mayo
9) smoked salmon and creamed cheese
10) garlic and anything (that's for jo)


pics from
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain
*http://www.ovationtv.com/files/large_image_videos/0000/0110/fred_and_ginger_372x495.jpg

A start

I think this all started with cookbooks. I didn’t cook. Well, not much. And not much well. But I found myself wandering through the cookbook section of a local bookstore making new friends in print – and staying there - for about 15 years now.

Mollie Katzen was one of the first to come home with me. I was enchanted by her drawings and the printing and then the recipes in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. I knew nothing of the Moosewood gang. I didn’t even notice the book didn’t have a single piece of flesh in it. It was filled with vegetarian dishes.

I made pesto for the first time because of her. Without a food processor. And for that matter without a mortar and pestle. I improvised with the bottom of a glass and a shallow bowl. And after that, I bought a food processor. And pesto took seconds, not hours...

(Which, come to think of it, I also lost in the “custody battle” to someone who doesn’t know a food processor from a wooden spoon – and who thought a kitchen was wherever the microwave was.)

But the sense of wonder in putting those ingredients together, like alchemy, was powerful. And the perfume of the basil…it was good.

It all came together in Lasagna al Pesto. I made it over and over. And then I moved on to try other things – a roast…then a turkey…was there no end to this magic called cooking? And the lasagna, like all new trends, faded from my consciousness.

Last fall we headed to Calypso again – a group of women who come together once a year at a friend’s cottage. Many of us only see each other that weekend. And apart from catching up with each other’s lives, and our host’s penchant for making us set goals, and uncorking many bottles, we eat.

Our friend Wendy was thinking of lasagna for the Friday night arrival dinner. And somewhere from the back of my addled mind came “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest”. So I shared it with her…and she shared the lasagna with us. And brought it back to life for me. It was a good weekend.

My self-assigned goal by the way, was to collect the recipes from our years of dinners at Calypso…this is my start.

Lasagna al Pesto – adapted from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest

1 lb. fresh spinach
1 cup minced onion
3 tbs. olive oil
salt and pepper
½ cup grated paremesan
1 cup of pesto
2 lbs (4 cups) ricotta cheese
¼ cup toasted sunflower seeds
20-24 green lasagna noodles (I have used plain and green, and mixed them too)
1 lb mozzarella cheese, in thin slices

Clean and stem the spinach. Chop it finely.
Saute the onions in 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a heavy skillet until they’re soft not brown. Add salt and pepper. Remove from heat.

Stir the spinach into the onions. Transfer to a large bowl.

Add half the grated parmesan, the pesto, the ricotta, and the sunflower seeds. Grind in some black pepper. Mix.

If you are using dried noodles, boil them about 2 minutes, then rinse them under cold water, and drizzle them with the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil.

Place a layer of noodles in the bottom of an oiled 9x13 inch pan. Spread 1/3 of the filling onto the noodles. Place 1/3 of the mozzarella over that. another layer of noodles, another 1/3 of filling, another 1/3 of the mozzarella, more noodles, the remaining filling, remaining mozzarella, and one final layer of noodles, the remaining parmesan. And then drizzle the top with olive oil.

Cover with foil and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Simple and Rich

The classic things are the most simple, right? Not simplistic, simple. Clean. Thought through. Simplicity arrived at through complexity, until it's clear. Concentrated, a reduction of ideas to their essence.

I've been watching the new TED talks at ted.com - including Elizabeth Gilbert's struggle with her craft. And the soaring optimism of Jose Abreu, and El Sistema which puts a musical instrument in the hands of every Venezuelan child over the last 25 years, and has created a whole nation of music. And then a friend loaned me her copy of David Sedaris' "When You are Engulfed in Flames", whom I love and mostly because he makes complex observations so simply. And through me runs this quote that I've quoted before and can't get away from..."Simplicity is not a goal, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself, as one approaches the real meaning of things." Constantin Brancusi, the Romanian sculptor and a leader in modernist sculpture.

I have a theory. And I came to this theory wandering through the Tate Modern in London. My appreciation of art (and I am completely untrained in art), my opinion of it, is inversely proportional to the explanation next to it. In other words, the longer the text has to be to tell me what the artist "means" to "say", the longer my eye roll. I usually walk away completely irritated, whispering to the muse that helped that artist, "get over yourself." As Elizabeth Gilbert says in her TED talk, some people can have muses that are, frankly, lame.

Cooking can give you the same blast of poetry or frustration - and I most admire the food that delivers beautiful taste, balance with as little fuss as possible.

Last night, as the snow and the temperature fell again, and as we gathered round our table to pull together the warmth and humour and stories of our companions, I made something simple. Tomato sauce. It is so simple. So rich. And it doesn't take hours to simmer. Probably the best tomato sauce I have ever made...and I have made tomato sauce every week for the last number of years. I am sold on this one.

It comes from Cook's Illustrated - which I adore for their addiction to the how and why of cooking - oh, and their beautiful cover art. It comes from their 2006 issue, but I found it online when I watched them make it on their video series. I gave it a try and it was great. Then I made it again yesterday for our friends. I watched them get up from the table and get seconds, and the pot was empty when we started washing the dishes. So much for leftovers to get through this recession.

Marinara Sauce - adapted from Cook's Illustrated

2 - 28oz cans of whole tomatoes, with juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped finely
2 medium garlic cloves, minced finely
1/2 tsp dried oregano (I used a tad more)
1/3 cup of dry red wine (I used a merlot we had kicking around)
3 tbsp fresh basil chopped
salt, pepper and sugar to taste (add this toward the end, once you've determined what the tomatoes need)

Pour the tomatoes into a strainer over a large bowl. Let drain for five minutes or so. Using your hands, pull out the stem and core of the tomatoes. Set aside 3/4 cup of the tomatoes. Also set aside 2 1/2 cups of the liquid.

Heat olive oil in a skillet until shimmering and cook the onion until brown on the edges - about 6-8 mins. Then add the garlic and oregano and cook for about 30 seconds - until the garlic is hitting your nose.

Add the strained tomatoes and cook over medium high until all the liquid has disappeared and the tomatoes are creating a fond, sticking to the bottom of the pan slightly. This is the core of the issue here...the concentration of these tomatoes is unbelievable. This takes about 10-12 mins. Keep an eye, and keep stirring every so often.

Add the wine and stir while it thickens for about a minute, scraping up the bits off the bottom. Then add the tomato juice you reserved earlier. Bring it to a simmer and let cook for about 8-10 minutes. I turned off the sauce at this point to wait for our friends to arrive.

The recipe calls for pulling out the food processor. But when I was getting ready to serve and had the pasta boiling away, I reheated the sauce, added the fresh tomatoes I had reserved from before and just mashed them in with my trusty manual potato masher. The fresh tomatoes add a lovely texture and lightness. Add the fresh basil (nice as a garnish on top as well).

This is the time to test for salt, pepper and sugar.

Serve over pasta - we grated a little fresh parmesan on top...and whammo...it all disappeared.

The way to my heart

I think it was the shrimp. Or the homemade curry powder. Or maybe the champagne. Then again, it could have been the homemade naan. Well, maybe the champagne and the wine. Actually it was the whole nine yards (metres for my Canadians)…the whole effort. Steve got an A – and a wife out of that dinner. Food and wine and love…

It’s that time of year that imposes romance on us. But the only people I know who feel Valentine’s Day are those who are single – it’s like a fork in the eye – an entire industry that earns billions of dollars making a segment of our population feel excluded. I know that’s how I felt about it when I was single. I was indignant.

Now that I’m turning into an old married woman – deeply and lucky in love – I think of Valentine’s and it becomes about food. Food has been a serious part of this very serious relationship I’m in – which has me laughing everyday…sickening really.

Steve is an adventurous cook/experimenter. He has needed to try making many different things since we’ve been together – potato chips, various breads, baguettes and most infamously pretzels…and now that his intestines have revolted against wheat, he has mastered the art of the gluten-free chocolate chip cookie. There’s a bowl of them in the kitchen tempting me…

But I knew life had shifted – the ground had cracked open and I was on the other side of a new life – when Steve drove up on his BMW motorbike with dinner packed in the panniers on the back. It takes some thought to have a dinner that can be transported in briefcase-looking boxes.

We were friends. He was making me dinner for my birthday. It was simply two friends getting together on a Friday night after work. Oh, and we’d been flirting for the past couple of weeks on email. I’ve written about the lost email before.

I thought I’d share the recipes that were part of bringing us together…Steve made the dinner because I had travelled through India not long before. A couple of days later, we went over to his apartment. It looked like a flour bomb had been accidentally set off, not just in the kitchen but everywhere. And on the dining room table was a book called Complete Indian Cooking. He’d bought it to make my birthday dinner. And he didn’t and still doesn’t like Indian food (I’m sorry to say). But he did end up liking me pretty good - we were engaged five weeks later.

Talk about a way to a girl’s heart…it always comes down to bread.


Naan – recipes adapted from the utilitarian-ly named Complete Indian Cooking – and all this without a tandoor…




3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
½ oz. fresh yeast
5/8 cup warm milk
5/8 cup plain yogurt
ghee or vegetable oil for greasing
½ cup butter
2 tbsp poppy seeds

Sift the flour into a large bowl and stir in the sugar, salt, and baking soda. Dissolve the yeast in the milk and stir in the yogurt. Mix thoroughly with the flour to form a dough.

Knead the dough until it is smooth, and then place in a bowl covered with a clean cloth and leave it to rise in a warm place for about four hours.

Divide the risen dough into 12 equal-sized portions and roll them into balls. On a lightly floured surface, flatten the balls into oblong shapes, using both hands and slapping the naan from one hand to the other. Now that sounds like fun.

Grease a griddle or heavy-bottom skillet lightly with ghee or vegetable oil and heat it until it is very hot. Cook the naan on one side only, a few at a time. Remove and spread the raw side with butter and poppy seeds. Cook under a preheated hot broiler until browned. Serve hot.


Shrimp and Spinach Rice

2 cups basmati rice
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp turmeric
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil
2 onions sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
1-2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp ground coriander
2 lbs spinach, washed, trimmed, and chopped
1 lb cooked, peeled shrimp

Wash the basmati rice thoroughly. (I love washing rice - I run my fingers through it and around it while the water runs and it always feels like a quiet, important thing to do) Cook according to the directions. I usually put the rice in a pot, add water until it's about 1" above the rice and put it on to boil. Once boiling, I immediately turn the heat to low. Leave for 15 minutes. Turn off heat then without lifting lid and let sit on the stove for at least five minutes.

Stir in butter.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the onions, garlic and ginger. Fry for five minutes until golden. Stir in the chili powder, coriander, and the remaining 1 tsp of salt, and fry for a few seconds.

Add the spinach and cook, stirring constantly, until softened. Stir in the shrimp and remove from heat.

Layer the spinach mixture with the buttered rice in an ovenproof casserole dish beginning and ending with the spinach. Cover tightly with a lid and then cook in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F (175 C) for 30 minutes. Serve immediately. Unless you're on a motorbike.

Now of course you need the Raita. I make this for all sorts of dishes - and eat the leftovers with a big spoon.

3 1/2 oz of thinly sliced cucumber
1/ 1/2 cups plain yogurt
6 green onions, thinly sliced
1 fresh green chili, seeded and finely chopped

Put the cucumber in a colander, sprinkle with salt and let it drain for 30 mins. Pat dry.

I know raita is traditionally pretty runny, but I prefer to thicken the yogurt first. It's simple (and if you're stuck without sour cream for something, this works in a pinch). Line a sieve or colander with cheesecloth. Use paper towel if you don't keep cheesecloth handy. Pour the yogurt into the sieve and allow to drain for a while. Pour away the liquid. And when you're happy with the thickness of the yogurt, pour it back into bowl and mix with the cucumber, green onions and chile (optional). Keep it in the fridge until you need it. You can vary what you put in it...I love it with finely chopped garlic...but the longer you let it sit, the more you'd better love garlic.

The picture of the tandoor oven and naan bread above comes from wikipedia

My cooking chops

I’m normal. Favourite word. Bar none. Ever.
Not normal as in boring, flat, suburban. I’m normal - In the medical sense. It's a good thing.

Hello again.

I feel kind of slow-roasted. That feeling where I've slowed down (some of that is mental), eased back, tenderized myself, allowed myself to caramelize and brought out the sweetness...slow roasted the best in myself.

I've got myself back. I've held it together and now look back at my adventure through chemo and radiation (which, I must admit, is not so much like being slow roasted, as it is like being zapped in a microwave)...and realize how shit scary it was.

So now when they check me out and get bored and start talking about the disaster to their stock portfolio, I grin and go along for the ride...I'm so boring, I'm normal! Best word in the English language.

So life reasserts itself. I work. I run again. I eat. And I talk about food a lot. Hence I run.
Unless the windchill is crushing us senseless. Winter is professional this year. Snow and bitter cold. Our mothers have both had to have professionals come and clear ice and snow from their rooftops. And Steve is intently figuring out how to spend the winters in a place where windchill is a problem only in the beer fridge.

I have been finding my cooking chops again.

At the back of the freezer the other day I excavated a lamb leg. It was clearly on the edge of extinction. And I thought about a recipe I saw Jamie Oliver do on "Jamie at Home" that cooked the lamb (it was a shoulder in that case) for four hours – and it looked so incredible when it came out, I needed a napkin.

Now in the case of the lamb leg in my freezer, it wasn’t destined to inspire poetry. It looked like something prehistoric found by archeologists in the Andes. I was dealing with a sorry looking piece of meat – what else could I do but cook the hell out of it? And then perhaps it too would regain a sense of normality or at least at the risk of inspiring poetry - fulfill its destiny.

I had to try and remember the recipe – because I just haven’t the guts to spend the 40 bucks on Jamie's book yet, but I will. What I did have was the four hours it takes to bake it in the oven…I thought.

That day Steve had kindly taken to cleaning our oven – which we consider our civic duty to our local fire department. The oven is small and our organic chickens we roast in there weekly are particularly adept at spitting all over it until there’s more smoke than air in the apartment. So, I came up with this recipe at 5pm and Steve stepped up his rinsing and wiping…which was at 5:30pm…We ate...late.

However, a couple of hours of bad Saturday night television later (and if you grew up in the 70s, the lamb would have been done in the middle of Love Boat and before Fantasy Island yuk) when it came out of the oven, it was everything I could do not to eat it with my hands right off the bone, probably like one of those prehistoric frozen beings found in the Andes…it was a glorious end for a piece of meat that was otherwise doomed to freezer burn.

So here goes a sort-of slow-roasted lamb rescue. Adapted from the James...

1 lamb leg or shoulder (mine was about 2lbs bone in)

1 bunch fresh rosemary

1 head of garlic

olive oil

crunchy salt

freshly-ground pepper

The key here is to get the oven as hot as you can to start. So, 500 degrees F.

While that’s heating up, score the fat on the roast into a diamond pattern (run your knife through diagonally in one direction and then turn it and run your knife in the opposite direction).

Pour some olive oil in the bottom of a roasting pan and then pile a layer of fresh rosemary– I used what I had on the counter that had been living its last glory days.

Throw half to ¾ of the garlic cloves unpeeled on the bottom of the pan.

Place the roast, fat side up, on the rosemary and garlic.

Pour olive oil on the roast and rub it into the crevices of the fat and meat.

Sprinkle the roast with the salt and pepper.

Top with the remaining rosemary and garlic bulbs.

Wrap the whole thing tightly in tin foil…I used a couple of layers to make sure it was sealed.

Place in the middle of the oven.

Turn the heat down to 325 degrees F.

Leave for four hours.

Now when it comes out you’ll be able to pull the meat off the bone with a fork. I’m not kidding. It’s just beautiful.

Pull the meat off and set aside on a platter that you can keep warm.

Remove the rosemary spears and discard. Take out the garlic and set aside.

Pour off the fat from the roasting pan, all but one tablespoon. Don’t lose any of the good brown bits that are chock full of flavour. Squeeze the garlic from the garlic bulbs and mash them into the pan.

Put the roasting pan on the stove, if you can, and add 1 tbsp of flour. Stir the flour and oil together to thicken – let cook a little to lose the flour flavour, then add 1 cup of chicken stock. Stir with a wooden spoon and let it boil for about five minutes or so. Add a bunch of fresh mint that you’ve finely chopped (leaves only) and about 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar. Bring back to a boil briefly.

When ready to serve you can pour it directly over your platter, or place in a warm jug and let people help themselves. Bringing lamb back from oblivion to its normal destiny...Good to be back...Enjoy.

Mad Max

We used to say you had to leave newspapers out for Max. Not to pee on. He needed to keep up on current events. He was that smart.

I remember walking him along with his less intellectual housemate, Jake, on a beach one morning. Jake lagged behind, his leash dragging in the sand while he snuffled around the corpse of a fish. Max, as usual, was ever alert...and he ran up to me to see how I was doing.

I asked him, "where's Jake? What's Jake doing? Go...go get Jake."

He took off, round the small cove, up to Jake, picked up his leash on his mouth and tugged. Jake started ambling along behind him.

My jaw dropped. That dog wasn't just smart, he spoke English.

Max wasn't mine. My friends let me look after him when they were away.

Max died this week. I know how much his humans loved him. And how much he loved them. I hope he knew how much he meant to me - the walks, the playing, the laughing, the running in the morning...thanks Max...rest...just rest.

bubble wrap

If you're waiting for a pot to boil...freaked out by your souffle in the oven...can't think of what to feed the boss for dinner...try this...

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.