A Little Tagine Does the Heart Good

This is the season of cinnamon. And ginger…of savoury and sweet…of warmth.

I made this again last week for my friends. And they seemed to love it. I think the power of these spices is perfect for this time of year, in this cold and wintry landscape, even though tagine comes from a hot part of the world. Tagine is one of those impressive dishes that is just a lovely, spicy stew - you can make it with anything - I've written about lamb tagine before. And this one made of chicken is a lovely, lovely recipe that will wrap up all these flavours and senses and feed you well.

Chicken Tagine with Apricots and Almonds – adapted from Epicurious.com
serves 4 - but I did scale it up successfully 

1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp black pepper
1 ¼ tsp salt
3 tbsp olive oil
3-lb chicken in pieces (I’ve used bone-in thighs and boneless thighs – both worked)
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 medium red onion, halved, then sliced ¼ inch thick (although I don't think a white onion would be remiss)
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 sprigs fresh cilantro
5 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 ½ cups water
2 tbsp mild honey
3 inch stick of cinnamon
½ cup dried Turkish apricots, separated into halves (that is, the hard way – slice them open and through)
1/3 whole blanched almonds

Stir together the ground cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, pepper, 1 tsp salt, and 2 tbsp oil in a large bowl. Add chicken and turn to coat well. This smells so amazing…

Heat butter and 1 tbsp oil in base of a skillet, uncovered, over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Brown half the chicken pieces, skin sides down, turning over once, 8 to 12 minutes.

Transfer to a plate.

Brown the rest of the chicken adding any spice mixture left in bowl.

If you’re doing a lot of chicken (I doubled the recipe last time) keep an eye on the smoke and burning at the bottom of the pan…I would recommend stopping at the halfway point and starting again with a clean pan and oil…you’ll need the fond at the bottom of the pan later and you don't want it to be burnt as it melds with the sauce in the pan…

Add onion and remaining 1/4 tsp salt to pan and cook, uncovered, stirring frequently, until soft, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes.

Tie cilantro and parsley into a bundle with kitchen string and add to tagine along with 1/2 cup water, chicken, and any juices accumulated on plate. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 30 minutes.

While chicken cooks, bring honey, remaining cup water, cinnamon stick, and apricots to a boil in a  heavy saucepan, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until apricots are very tender (add more water if necessary). Once apricots are tender, simmer until liquid is reduced to a glaze, 10 to 15 minutes.

I never came close to running dry...and never quite achieved the "glaze" they talk about...but I'll try this again...and if you try and succeed, can you let me know?

Heat a small skillet and cook the whole almonds, keeping a close eye, until just golden, 1 to 2 minutes. The recipe calls for this to be done in a 1/4 cup of olive oil. But I did them in a dry skillet - as I said...keep a close eye.

Ten minutes before chicken is done, add apricot mixture to the chicken. Discard herbs and cinnamon stick. When you serve the dish, sprinkle the top with the almonds and some more chopped parsley. I served this with rice – but green beans, or a simple salad, or couscous, quinoa would be great too.

Basil Pesto

Yesterday I spent the day in the kitchen - my cocoon of warmth and beautiful smells and comfort.

I was prepping for a dinner party for people who hadn’t been to our kitchen, who hadn’t sat at our family table – people I wanted to bring into our home and enjoy a meal.

Oblivious to the news, I had checked the twitter headlines in the morning…a teacher shot somewhere like Connecticut…oh…you know…sadly, it’s the States…I got on with what I had to do.

Ironically, when you’re cooking on deadline, surrounded by piles of vegetables and meat and spices and herbs, you don’t tend to eat yourself. I finally sat down for a bite at about 2pm.

That’s when I pulled out the computer to catch up on what the world was up to…that’s when I discovered the world had shuddered to a stop – that a very, very disturbed young man had ended his life by taking the lives of so many others, in a little place called Newtown, and with the added shock and horror that he took little ones, and those who care for them every day, with him.

With all the other shootings that have happened my shoulders have slumped in despair and I’ve said nothing will change…this won’t change anything.

But I’ve had it. Enough. Effect change people – I would like to see a cultural turn of mind away from the gun…and I wonder if it can happen.

One of my favourite journalism people Al Tompkins at the Poynter Institute has some interesting stats for journalists who are covering this tragedy. But they’re good for everyone to absorb – it gives us all some context.

In the New Yorker Jill Lepore wrote, "There is no solace to be found, not in the crushing, aching sympathy felt by everyone on hearing the story, not in the candlelit vigils, not in the agony of the President, who, during a press conference, winced, and was nearly overcome. This is the face of a nation undone."

It will take some time to wrestle our souls and minds into understanding the horrible nexus where an obsessive gun culture meets mental illness that fuels horrible, horrible anger.

~

I will write about what we ate last night – a lovely recipe for tagine (yes, another) and a beautiful lasagna, I’ve written about before. But not now.

Now I need to write about something basic – a backbone to cooking that is magical.

Basil Pesto – adapted from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen

I love Mollie’s book – it was my first cookbook when all this food thing started – I particularly love Mollie’s drawings.

The first time I made this I didn’t have a food processor. I crushed everything in a bowl pretending to be the mortar, and the bottom of a glass pretending to be the pestle (yup it’s pronounced pessel). It was excruciating.

It was the reason I bought a food processor. The first recipe I made in it was the pesto. I put in the ingredients, I pressed 'on'. After a few seconds I pressed 'off'. I just stood there looking at it in the bowl, I pressed 'stunned'.

I lost that food processor in a breakup with a boyfriend. And with the loss of the appliance went my memory of this recipe. Because I wasn’t going back to the bowl mortar and glass pestle.The pesto had to wait.

Well, thanks to my credit card company I scored another food processor on reward points a couple of weeks ago.

And then in need of a vegetarian dish for last night, karma created the perfect reason to make pesto again. So the first recipe I made in my new processor was, once again, pesto.

This makes 2 1/2 – 3 cups (although when I cut it in half yesterday I yielded only one cup of pesto – which was fine as that’s what I needed)

3 cups of packed fresh basil leaves (no stems)
3-4 garlic cloves
¼ - ½ tsp salt
¾ cup grated parmesan cheese (no, the fresh kind…)
¼ cup pulverized (I used pine nuts, but I think any nut would do)
½ cup olive oil

These are optional add-ons:
½ cup packed fresh parsley
¼ cup melted butter
freshly-ground black pepper

So, given my new love of the food processor…pull out either your food processor or even your blender – you can make basil smoothies later.

This is so easy it’s stupid.

Put the ingredients in the bowl with the steel blade fitted, put on the lid, hit 'on'…and let it whirr away until you have a uniform paste.(I stopped it a few seconds in to push down the stuff that had crawled up the sides of the bowl.)

The smell and look of this magical mixture will blow your senses. You can mix with cooked pasta – to taste. (Be careful with pesto – I find it’s one of those beautiful ingredients that can become too much too fast…so consider yourself warned.)

Or you can freeze it - put some in an ice cube tray - then you'll have portion sizes ready to go rather than a big green block.

 If you make this, please let me know. Share it with your family and friends – food is a form of love. And most of all people – peace.

Pickled Turnips

I have been carrying around this recipe stored on my shopping list app on my phone. It feels very vulnerable there. I am terrified of deleting it...I must give it some measure of posterity here. It deserves it.

This is another recipe for Pickled Turnips with Beets. And it’s courtesy of Sam at the Armenian Kitchen. I’ve written about the AK before in my screed on routine. It’s a bit of a Toronto institution for those who come from east of Yonge St. – and for those with a taste for homemade hummus to die for – and baba ghanoush - and shawarma – and kabobs…all made there.

As my friend’s friend said…east of Yonge…not as far east as Pickering…you know…the middle east…

The pickled turnips come with every meal. They’re brought to the table on a saucer – and it’s a fight for survival from then on…Steve and I wolf them down like people finding an oasis in the desert.
Last time we were there, Sam brought us a takeout container for the rest of our hummus and baba ghanoush and tabbouleh…oh I forgot the tabbouleh!... and I asked him why all the people around us were leaving the turnips untouched. “Are they crazy?” I asked, apparently very loudly…. Steve and Sam jumped a little…

It’s a food crime.

Which tells you I’m not adult enough yet to accept that people might not like everything I like. I refuse to accept it…so…there.

I posted a recipe before that I gleaned from several sources in a vain attempt to match these…but they don’t come close.

Sam took pity on me when I explained how I was making them – and he gave me the recipe…and we tried it…we’ve tried it three times now and the fourth batch will be ready this weekend.
Let me know if you give these a try. And if you can get to the Armenian Kitchen – it’s in a dingy Scarborough strip mall on Victoria Park Ave – between Eglinton and Lawrence Ave.

Sam just smiled and wagged his finger at me when I asked for the hummus recipe...it was worth a shot.


Armenian Kitchen's Pickled Turnips

1 cup white vinegar
5 cups cold water
2 tbsp sea salt
1 good sized beet
5-6 smallish turnips (we found the smaller turnips better)

Mix the vinegar and water with the salt and stir until salt is dissolved.
Scrub the beet and turnips and trim their ends. No peeling required.




Finely chop the beet. Set aside.

Chop the turnip into bit-sized slices about ¼ inch thick. Set aside.

Keep the beets and turnips separate.




In a very clean jar (Sam didn’t say you had to sterilize it, but make sure it’s very clean) layer in the turnip slices until they’re just under halfway up the jar.

Add a layer of beets.

Layer in the rest of the turnip. And finish with a layer of beets. Weigh it down if you can.

Pour the water mixture into the jar, filling it.



Sam was very precise about this part – do not touch the inside of the jar with your hands at this point.

Lay plastic wrap over the neck of the jar, and screw on the lid.

Set aside for two weeks. “Two weeks! Not one! Not like my wife who will sneak in before the two weeks is over. Two. Weeks,” Sam said…And when Sam says…two weeks…he means two weeks.
…which for us is this weekend. It’s like Christmas...

Enjoy.

Exercising the Rite and Right for Christmas Pudding

The days are sharp, short and cold now.

I find myself looking at the weather radar screen for the striations of pale blue that tell me that snow is on its way. Yes. I want snow at this time of year. And Toronto tends to have a force field around it that pushes snow in every direction but inward.

Yes that was a taunting jab at the gods.

Canadians are completely bonkers about this. A White Christmas is more than a movie – it’s a national rite. I get a little thrill from seeing catalogues of sweaters, slippers, and snow sliders. I buy apple cider by the jug. I can’t do anything about a fireplace without setting off the smoke alarms, as we don’t have a fireplace.

I know what it is. I’m looking forward to Christmas – for the sense of festivity, for the food.

And an important ritual has just passed. Mum has finished making her Christmas puddings. And she’s written down the recipe for the first time in her 85 years. (Okay I give her a waiver for the first decade…maybe two.)

If you like Christmas fruitcake (I know, I know I’m talking to a select audience)…are partial to the deep scent of allspice, cloves and sweetness…and you haven’t tried Christmas pudding…it’s kind of a combination of naughty and nice. And maybe, just maybe, an acquired taste.

I still remember one Christmas…when I was about 9 – back when we dressed up for Christmas dinner – ladies in long dresses, men in suits and ties, when the ritual of the Christmas pudding hit its stride. The pudding was always brought on a platter from the kitchen to the dining room in a kind of procession like a birthday cake…the lights went dim, then in came a flaming mound of pudding – the blue alcohol-ho-ho-ho-lic flames tickling the entire pudding – right down to the plate. There was a plentiful supply of brandy. And there were cheers all round.

And I hated it. I loved the cream and the custard that went with it…but the pudding. Yuck. Everyone was so happy to see the platter come in. And I burst into tears. Sobbing, needy tears. “Why – sob - can’t – sob - I – sob – like – sob - Christmas pudding? What’s wrong with me?”

I got cuddled and calmed and given a bowl of peaches to have with my cream…but I still felt the indignation of not being a part of it, and not ‘getting’ it.

But I wasn't alone. The Christmas pudding world is split decisively and irrevocably between those who love and those who hate it.

As it turns out I grew up to LOVE it – especially my Mum’s – and am now making up for some seriously lost time.

Of course, I found out that the majority of the people in my world would choose the canned peaches and cream over anything like Christmas pudding.

Which is fine. More for us right?

My Mum was in a rush to get them made in November – she says they need at least a month and (Delia Smith suggests 6-8 weeks and no more).  That said - Mum told me her aunt found an old Christmas pudding in the larder that had been put there during the war and forgotten. About five years later they discovered it during a larder excavation and decided to give it a go in the steamer. She said it was delicious - although you could only stomach a small slice as it was so rich...and in a time of such deprivation...rich is as good as it gets.

This is a mashup of Mum’s various recipes and experience with Delia Smith’s recipe…the best kind of mashup.

My Mum’s Christmas Pudding (adapted from Delia Smith’s Christmas) and how it looked on Christmas night

Makes 2 - 1 pint puds



4 oz. suet, shredded (if you’re a vegetarian, this is not for you. I find suet in the freezer section of the market, usually next to the tubes of sausage meat)
2 oz. flour
4 oz. breadcrumbs
1 tsp. ground mixed spice
¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
“a good pinch” of ground cinnamon
8 oz. dark brown sugar
4 oz. sultanas
4 oz. raisins
10 oz. currants
(the recipe does call for 1 oz. candied peel, but I draw the line at candied peel…ugh…so we add a little more of the other dried fruit, or add dried cranberries.)
1 oz. chopped almonds
1 small apple, peeled, cored, finely chopped
Zest of ½ large orange
Zest of ½ large lemon
2 eggs
2½ oz. barley wine (Mum has never used any of these liquors in her pudding…)
2½ oz. stout
2 tbsp. rum

Mum always uses brandy or cognac, and used the rum for the first time this year. Use any malt liquor, she says. She’s used rye and/or whisky. She has also topped up with apple juice if she doesn’t have quite enough.

The day before: Take a large mixing bowl, mix together the suet, flour, breadcrumbs, spices and sugar.
Gradually mix in all the dried fruit and nuts. Add the apple and orange and lemon zest.

In a smaller bowl mix the liquor, then add the eggs and beat thoroughly.

Here comes the muscle part: add this liquid concoction to the other ingredients and mix thoroughly.

I love this part in Delia Smith’s recipe: “It’s now traditional to gather all the family round, especially the children, and invite everyone to have a really good stir and make a wish…”

It should be sloppy. Cover the bowl and leave overnight.

Next day, prepare two lightly-greased pudding basins. Split the mixture between them. Cover them with a double sheet of wax paper and a sheet of foil and tie it securely with string. (Another gem from Delia: “…it’s also a good idea to tie a piece of string across the top to make a handle.”)

Put the pudding basin in a steamer, over a pot of simmering water and steam it for 8 hours (steam both puddings for the same length of time - even if in two separate steamers). Keep an eye on the water level and keep adding boiling water from the kettle when it’s getting low.

When it’s done, let it cool. Replace the wax paper and foil with fresh ones.

Keep it in a dark, cool place until Christmas Day.

To reheat it fill a pot with water and bring it to the boil. Put a steamer on top, turn the heat down to a simmer. Put the pudding in the steamer, cover, and let it steam for approximately two hours. Keep an eye on the water level - we've all made the mistake of letting it boil dry…

To serve it slide a knife or spatula around the outer edge of the pudding, place a plate upside down on the top of the pudding bowl, then quickly turn it over. If you’ve loosened the pudding well enough, you should be able to pull the pudding bowl off and reveal a beautiful Christmas pudding all ready to go on the plate. Except for one thing...

The flaming cognac!

Heat a ladle full of brandy or cognac on the stove…suspend it over the pudding and get someone to light a match and bring it close to the ladel – please watch your arms and assorted body parts at this point. Once the brandy is alight, pour it over the pudding – Delia says to do this at the table…not sure how you walk from the kitchen to the table with a flaming ladle of brandy…but…since my kitchen and dining room are one, I can pour the flaming brandy directly onto the pudding and bring the plate with flaming pudding to the table…still pretty spectacular. 

And wayyyyyy better than canned peaches. Seriously.

Serve with whipped cream or rum butter or custard…and may whatever you and your family wished for come true...

I Was a Sibling Once

Foreboding joy. I didn’t know there was a name for it.

I came across it in Brené Brown’s work. I’ve been inspired this week to read more from the University of Houston research professor who came to my attention a few years ago in that spellbinding TED talk she did on vulnerability. She has spent years and years talking to thousands of people about how shame and vulnerability have shaped their lives. Because it does.

I know it.

I, and perhaps I should say we, seem to have slipped down the slope towards reckoning again. I know so many people who are rethinking their lives – their careers – their relationships…it’s a sine wave that oscillates through time…I figure we get to reckon…then we get to test…then we get to deploy what we’ve learned until the next down curve. 

Wheeeeeee….

I’m reading Brown’s Daring Greatly in the hopes it can inspire me to believe more in me…so I can believe in myself the way I believe, with jaw-dropping awe, in my beautiful friends and family and husband.

She argues that joy is 'probably the most difficult emotion to feel'. Foreboding joy is that sense you can’t trust how good you’ve got it. That life will kick you in the ass as soon as you relax into joy. So, don’t try it, don’t tempt fate, and best of all, expect the worst.

Well I know that feeling well. I grew up with it. Might as well expect the worst. Because that’s what happens. The worst.

I came by it honestly.

Brené Brown wrote about looking at her children sleeping – and in that moment full of bliss, she let her guard down…feeling all the love that took her breath away. And in the next moment her mind was flooded with images of terrible things happening to them, “I was sure that no one but me pictured car wrecks and rehearsed the horrific phone conversations with the police that all of us dread…”

My mother got that call.

On the evening of November 23rd in 1970.

My brother, Richard, just two weeks after his 20th birthday, went away with a friend for the weekend. They were going horseback riding. It was cold, so cold that November. His friend pulled up in the red Volkswagen beetle, Richard got in…the sun was going down, the light was very blue and wintry. We heard nothing until the phone rang.

I picked it up. I was seven. I can still hear the man with the Quebecois accent asking to speak to my mother.

Mum was…I don’t know…breaking apart while she listened. When she hung up, she told me there had been an accident. Richard was injured.

The cop wanted to come over. Mum was scared. She called our neighbours around the corner, Uncle Eddie and Auntie Lise…Eddie showed up right away. I ran next door, I think, to get Auntie Val and tell her something had happened.

When the cop arrived I was told to go to the bedroom and close the door. I did. But I went to my Mum’s room, not mine.

And I remember putting my two hands on her dresser and staring hard…so hard into the mirror. Looking for something – I don’t know what…horror, fear…an answer to why this family was being cursed with so many tectonic earthquakes. My father had left a few years before to be with someone else. My brother ran off to live with friends downtown – and turned to drugs to medicate his way through his young manhood which was bearing down on him hard - which took us to more than one hospital in the middle of the night as he overdosed, got hepatitis, freaked my Mum out. Mum had had to go to work, I was bounced from house to house for daycare – and I remember just nodding my head and going with the flow…and trying not to be shattered by it all. Tectonic.

When they called me out of the bedroom, Mum was pulling on her coat. She said I was going to stay at Uncle Eddie’s and Aunt Lise’s until morning. She had to go to the hospital. I wanted to go with her. I didn’t need any more separation. But it was not an option.

The red Volkswagen had raced down the backroads of our small town of Chambly. They were narrow country roads, and there were a couple of small bridges crossing the nearby creek that tumbled into the Richelieu River. We’d had a hard freeze. Snow and ice everywhere. The driver was going too fast – he jumped a bridge, hit a curve, couldn’t make it, slid on ice, and the car tumbled a couple of times and hit a tree. This was not the era of headrests, seatbelts, or airbags. Richard sprawled across the car. The driver crawled out…unharmed.

The next morning I was getting ready for school when Uncle Eddie said I could go see Mum. She wasn’t at home though. She was next door at Auntie Val’s. When I walked in the weight of the air was oppressive and scary. People were around her, all of them looking at me. But all I could really see was her. Mum’s face is seared on my brain. It’s broken into a million pieces, like glass that hasn’t come apart…not yet…but is about to crumble into shards on the ground and impossible to ever fix. She tells me Richard has been in an accident that has caused brain damage. Which at least means he’s alive, I think…but she says no, he's dead.

Okay. Okay. Okay….Okay…

Go to school. Be normal. Life without my brother begins.

In my mother’s own way she tried to keep me from everything painful…I went to school…even during his funeral.

Then things turn into snapshots – my father calling short a vacation with his girlfriend in Barbados. He comes home. When I ask him to stay, he promises never to leave again. He can’t keep it. The sense of adrenaline in my body as I tell my teacher, Mrs. Barry, that Richard died last night. Weirdness. And then her face. And that I’m fine. Just fine.

My mother breaking down as my brother’s best friend comes in the door for the funeral reception – I was home from school as people were arriving. ‘Oh,’ she wails. You can hear a pin drop as everyone looks on. He stops cold in the foyer…She blurts out, ‘if you had come home for the weekend he wouldn’t have gone away.’ But he didn’t come home, couldn’t. So Richard decided to go away with his other friend. 'Shall I leave?' he says. My mother recovers herself, says no of course not…and he comes in…

In the summer of 1970 my brother had finally come home to live. He was getting through his drug addiction – on his own. And yes, that led to some interesting scenes where holes got punched in cupboard doors and walls. Yikes.


I remember after he came home that I was able to tell the neighbourhood kids, ‘my brother will come beat you up if you mess with me.’ I remember him tickling me so hard, that I actually didn’t like having a brother very much at that moment. I remember him patiently examining my attempts at making letters and words. I remember my need to impress him. I remember he decided he was going to become a teacher. And go back to school in January. I remember he loved cooking. I remember he could climb on the roof of the house, without a ladder, to look at the sunset. I remember his guitar. Then his electric guitar…and jumping out of my skin late at night when he turned on the amp. I remember he had a car in the garage – that never worked. I remember him giving me a little leather tobacco pouch that he had. It’s on my mantle now – and it’s my talisman of family. I remember him taking me out for Hallowe’en. In 1970 they almost cancelled Hallowe’en because of the FLQ crisis. Richard walked me round to get my candy. And I felt pretty damned safe, let me tell you. I don’t remember my costume. Little did I know I had but three weeks more with him.

A song by Frank Sinatra called ‘Didn’t We’ came out then…and it used to make Mum cry and probably still would…because it was about almost making it…and Richard, with Mum's help, almost had.

I also lost touch with everyone who knew him – at least until facebook came along. And without them I forgot, or never knew, what he was really like. And at seven when you lose someone like that, you forget what they look like… He had long hair. He was tall. I couldn’t remember life with him. I couldn’t remember his face or his laugh. He disappeared.

And I started calling myself an only child.

So I grew up knowing that sense of foreboding joy. That shit does rain down on people. The phone does ring. And sometimes it is the cops. And after almost 40 years of armouring myself against that, I started a long journey of reckoning. And I let myself know that I wasn’t fine. That it sucked. It was unjust. And it hurt. And it made me so angry.

I don’t know why these things happen to good people. There’s no judgement in nature. It just is.

And reckoning, I've learned the hard way, is actually the upside of the curve of the sine wave. An uphill battle, mind you...but upwards.

I do know love. The real thing. And my Mum and I made it through the worst of things, even those that were yet to come.

I reconnected with a friend of Richard’s, and a couple of years ago we finally met for dinner. I now tease him mercilessly like I’ve known him my whole life. And occasionally he looks at me weirdly – he can see Richard in me. I know it. I hope it doesn’t cause him pain. When we left the restaurant we walked back to our car to give him a ride back to his hotel. My husband, mother, our re-found friend and I heard a whooshing sound overhead…loud enough for us all to look up. A meteor left a trail of silver sparks across the night sky. It was low, and blindingly bright, and beautiful. We all looked at each other…no one spoke. Maybe, just maybe it was a talisman of joy…just pure unadulterated joy. I'd like to think so.

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...