What I take with me

My eldest daughter mocks me – lovingly – about the amount of stuff that I tend to haul with me when I venture forth on my annual (or semi-annual) trips to Ireland. She does have a point– especially given my three score years and ten. Mum, you didn’t bring a cedar plank to cook salmon on, did you? Well, yes, I did, and I could explain, but I promise to refrain.

In some ways, the most important bits that I bring with me on my trips are invisible. They remind me of the ritual in Margaret Wise Brown’s famous children’s book Goodnight Moon. For example, I always bring with me my last sight of the mountains from the ferry as I head towards Horseshoe Bay on my way to the Vancouver Airport.

On the morning that I left, I also photographed a framed poem that Andreas and I have in our bedroom. It was written by John Newlove. We constantly need his reminder. You can see me in the reflection on the glass, which is fitting.

John was wise, but he was also a wild and crazy man. I will never forget driving him home from a party at our place in Regina in 1980, when he was drunk enough that it seemed to him to be a very good idea to try to kick out my windscreen while I was driving, and the temperature outside the car was 30 below. I can’t recall if he didn’t succeed because he was still recovering from a broken hip sustained while falling off a bar stool, or whether that broken hip came later.

Regardless, John was also capable of being the soul of utter kindness. He and Susan hosted us when our new digs were not yet available in the year that we moved to Regina – not an easy feat since the two of them lived in a modestly sized apartment, and we had a one-year-old in tow. Most mornings, he and I sat together with my daughter at our feet, while our spousals were out in the world, as he watched his habitual morning game shows on TV. He got all the answers right, and would shout them out before the contestants on the screen had a chance to hit their buzzers.

This poem of John’s – one of his many brilliant poems - speaks to me on a regular basis, so I had to bring it with me, of course, along with a bit of candied ginger, orange bitters, and pink peppercorns for making cocktails. The essentials. John would understand.

THE WEATHER

I'd like to live a slower life.
The weather gets in my words
and I want them dry. Line after line
writes itself on my face, not a grace
of age but wrinkled humour. I laugh
more than I should or more
than anyone should. This is good.

But guess again. Everyone leans, each
on each other. This is a life
without an image. But only
because nothing does much more
than just resemble. Do the shamans
do what they say they do, dancing?
This is epistemology.

This is guesswork, this is love,
this is giving up gorgeousness to please you,
you beautiful dead to be. God bless
the weather and the words. Any words. Any weather.
And where or whom. I'd never taken count before.
I wish I had. And then
I did. And here
the weather wrote again.

The last little bit of my Goodby Moon rituals, when I leave by air, is always the Black Canoe. I like to sit with it for a bit, after I have checked my bags at YVR. If you do this too, if you stop to sit by Bill Reid's sculpture, and if  as you do, you ever wonder about the sheen that you can see on the Old Mouse Woman’s nose, it is because that is the most favoured place for travelers to touch before they depart. It brings them luck.

Thank you Old Mouse Woman. Thank you John. This morning as I natter on, a week after I left home, I am finally free to honour the slower life. At least for a bit.

Sinfully Delicious Yam Quiche

This morning, I told my friend Kinga what I had cooked last night with the Sisters at Roberts Creek Cohousing, and she said that she would like to make the same thing for supper tonight. Others at the dinner had also asked for the recipes. Thankfully I had snapped some pictures on my phone. The recipe is at the bottom of this post. PS  I have been deep into research and other writing lately - not blogging. I will return!

Our full menu included:

·       Sinfully delicious vegetarian quiches (using Coho eggs) with baked yam crust

·       Gilford Castle Pin-tuck Potatoes

·       Roasted Red Pepper Salad with fresh basil

·        Lettuce salad made with fresh greens from our Coho greenhouse.

·       Rhubarb cake a la Stacia (using Coho rhubarb).

This is what the yams look like after they have been pre-baked and assembled in pie plates. They need to be dry enough so there is no risk of the dreaded soggy bottom

Once the quiche is cooked,, it looks like this. Slightly browned on top, and no longer runny when you stab the middle with a knife.

I posted my Pepper salad recipe about five years ago, and I still do it this way.

Christine Wright and I invented this approach to spuds a couple of years ago when we were cooking together at Gilford Castle. We parboiled some Yukon Golds (or their locally available equivalent), then put them in an oven-proof pan, sliced the tops slightly (about ½” deep or a bit more for the larger potatoes), and then coated them with olive oil. Then we baked them at about 375 ^o F until they were nicely browned. Because Christine is (amongst many things) a seamstress, we decided to call them Pintuck Potatoes. For those who are not seamstresses, this is what pintucks look like.

We also feast with our eyes. Our dinners are always enhanced by the floral arrangements done by Angela. Free range flowers from Cohousing (snipped from where they won’t be missed).

Our dinners are blessed by enthusiastic diners.

For dessert, Stacia made an amazing peach-rhubarb cake, served with whipped cream. I apologize that the focus in this photo is a little off. It may be because I had enjoyed a fresh lavender-scented St. Germaine & gin cocktail beforehand. You can blame Shake: A New Perspective on Cocktails which Sabrina gave me a copy of, combined with the fact of fresh lavender being available at Vanessa's.

Sharon’s Yam Quiche Recipe:

3X = 18 slices	1X	Ingredients
6	1 ½ - 2	yams sliced VERY thin (a bit thicker than chips)
1 T	1 tsp	olive oil to toss slices
1 lb	5 oz	baby spinach  (and fresh basil?)
3 c	1 c	brown mushrooms
4 c	1  1/3 c	half milk/half whipping cream (don’t think: diet)
1 tsp	¼ tsp	teaspoon kosher salt
to taste	¼ tsp	teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
12	4	large eggs
6 oz	2 oz	feta cheese, crumbled
6T	2 T	Parmesan to top (or less)

Preparation:

1.     Preheat the oven to 350°, then peel and slice the yams. Toss them in a small amount of olive oil, and then lay them out on a sheet of parchment on a cooking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Don’t let them brown, but they need to lose some moisture or else your pie will risk having a soggy bottom (my first trial of doing it this way for my family suffered that fate).

2.     After the yam slices have baked, turn heat up to 375° - and then do the next steps while the oven is heating.

3.     Wilt spinach (pan or microwave)

4.     Sauté mushrooms on high heat in a bit of oil till they stop squeaking and start to release moisture.

5.     Arrange yam slices in pie plates so the sides and bottom of the pie plate are well covered. NOTE: pie plates with slightly higher sides work best. Shallow ones are just too – well, shallow.

6.     Whisk eggs until the yolks and whites are well blended, and then whisk them into the milk/cream, salt & pepper mixture.

7.     Arrange the wilted spinach on top of the pre-cooked yams; add mushrooms on top of the spinach, and feta on top of that.

8.     Pour egg mixture over mushrooms & spinach & feta. The liquid should reach the top of the yam crust.

9.     Bake at 375° for 35-40 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes; cut into 6 wedges per pie.