Zucchini Mama

Just before we go, a poem about the golf course where my sister lives: The Links of Glenn Eagles Men bash dimpled white balls, snicker off-colored jokes when I pass by. Children play here on the marginal land, too steep to develop, so that playing is falling. The sun's still going down. Susan's on the way to pick up mom- long day's journey into strip malls. There are mansions on the horizon. The walking paths are paved with gold, and littered with broken mustard weeds. There's a light on in the yard, the slow dusk is falling, cattle's dinner call lasts all day. Men bash white dimpled balls into the last vestiges of natural prairie, blasting the petals off the wild Alberta rose. I am afraid of being hit in what remains of my natural cranium. The unnatural lake is lined with a layer of floating golf balls. The sign behind the chain link fence warns in red letters look don't touch- you may spit, bash, snicker, twist pigeon-toed upper class strut but don't go near the edge of the false luck. A boy sees a garter snake this big and a girl meditates on the art of catching a white moth. She is deeply inside summer as deeply as the sun dips below this day and enters another. LDW Aug 9/04

Look at the time! We've got to be out of the house at noon so I've got to finish packing and get all those frozen perogies safely into mini Coleman cooler. I'll meet you in Alberta later tonight! Have a wonderful day and if you're Christmas shopping for food gifts , tell us what you bought! Zuke

I'm really enjoying your blog! It was interesting to read the above. My daughter just asked me what bees do in the winter. I had no clue! Do they just slow down? Is it business as usual? ← Good question danielle! Bees hibernate and feast on honey all winter long. So if you're a bee born in the late fall you live much longer than the usual three weeks. Check out this month's issue of the Honey Gardens Newsletter for more info.

Well, I've always wondered, with a name like that where you were from. Nice to meet you in the virtual world, saskanuck! What town are you from? I love small town lore. You must post about Regina on the Western Canada forum--people have been asking about the food scene there. Quick points before I forget an important part of the perogy process was when the Perogy Diva poked the dough with her finger before she started working with it. By the look on her face I could tell she was assessing it. She says by touching the dough she knows how easy or hard the dough will be to work with and how much flour she'll need. She has the knowledge that comes from experience. So don't forget to poke the perogy dough! Also, the web site for the Long House fish shop. I just wanted to say that their maple salmon nuggets are the best I have ever tasted. Long House web site

It's so funny when you're blogging to see people's names at the bottom of the screen. I have this urge to wave to them. Anyway, Ullie's a bit concerned Santa will not fill his complete order. He thinks we should leave some cash with the milk and cookies. He also thinks that Lego toys that are too expensive should be labeled with a warning! He said something cute yester day. Peter woke up in a foul mood and Ullie said "Daddy, you woke up on the worn side of the bed. You should go sit on the Naughty Point." That's a Super Nanny Technique. Ullie and I watched an episode of that show one and he was shocked at the behavior of some of those kids. "Mom, I would never do that! Can we get a Naughty Point?" So now the NP is a running joke, so whenever anyone disagees with us we try to send them over to the Naughty Point. I think Super Nanny gets grown men who ask to be put on the naughty Point, but we won't go there. Ahem, okay, Solstice Tart: Notice the rosemary in the whole wheat pastry. The rosemary is from our back yard, harvested moments before cooking. The flour is Anita's Organic unbleached from Chiliwack. How far is Chiliwack from Vancouver? Is the wheat grown there or milled there? Since Nancy and Peter are lactose intolerant and I didn't have any soya milk I just used four eggs mixed with a bit of mashed potatoes as the binder. The pumpkin was from my friend Lysa's garden in Maple Ridge. How far away is that? The potatoes are organic, but I forgot to ask where they came from. The salt is from Windsor Ontario--thousands of miles away. Is there any locally harvested salt here? The tomatoes are another cheat-just some Mexican grape tomatoes that needed using up. The roasted garlic--I can't remember. The pepper came from a friend in Emilia Romagna, but I don't know if it's grown in Italy. It is the ingredient that comes from farthest away. Oh, and on half the tart I put some of the Poplar Grove Tiger Blue, which is what those funny black bits are. It's from the Naramata Bench in the Okanagan which is our favorite wine region and some day I'd like to get married there if we can ever afford a big fat vineyard wedding! This is a slice with a salad I made of spinach, red cabage, pomegranate seeds and pumpkin seed dukkah from the Stock market in Granville Island, drizzled with pumpkin seed oil of course.

Is there a joke in there about the elevator not going to the top floor?? Just kidding Zuke! I knew you were an artist ... but a poet and a fashion diva too? Such talent. Ullie will love the Junior Scrabble ... keeps me entertained for hours. A. ← Yes I know Arne, weren't you the junior SCRAPPLE champ of 2004?

This is one of the cookies we baked yesterday. I wish I could have taken a picture of it with my SLR, because the depth of field is so crappy on these cheap digital cameras. Anyway, I love a glass of cold skim milk and a warm chocolate chunk cookie. The glass is vintage Cahill's and I love the text on it. Nature's Gift From the Desert Cahill's Prickly Pear Jelly We pioneered and developed this unusual jelly in 1949. It is a PURE product. 10 1/2 oz. net wt. This jelly is made from luscious, red, pear-shaped fruits growing along edge of pad-like stems of prickly pear cactus plants. These healthful desert fruits ripen during long sun-filled summer days. For centuries, Indians have prized prickly pears highly and call them "FRUIT OF THE DESERT." Delightfully Different. Copyright 1958. Cahill Desert. Prod. Co. E Thomas Road Phoenix, Arizona.

Good morning everyone! I'm up and sipping a cup of Noisette tea from Tearoom T. I've been listening to the gentle lullabyes of Angelika Kirschlager. My back has seized up today, so I'll have to do stretching in between packing and posting. I still have to post the meal from last night. Hope you all had a good sleep. I had wierd dream of eGullet, of course. Soba, I bought the salmon candy. I didn't make it. It's actually quite affordable here. So just hop on a plane and come and visit! Lemon Yogurt Scones I've been reading a tea shop mystery called The English Breakfast Murder by Laura Childs. Her series is set in Charleston, South Carolina in the Indigo Tea Shop. When she describes the aromas of the exotic teas and the baked goods I find myself wishing the tea shop really existed. The back of the book has a few recipes, but I hope Laura Childs puts out a cook book because some of the dishes described in the book aren't in the recipe section. Other books in the series are Death by Darjeeling, Gunpowder Green, and Shades of Earl Grey (Berkley Prime Crime Books). I love her characters, and imagine these books would make a very fun television series. She delves into the history of Charleston and the architecture, the antiques, and the books are saturated in Southern charm. I've always been fascinated by the concept of "charm"-having spent one summer of my university life reading the plays of Tennesee Williams. My ultimate comfort food is tea and scones. One of my favorite spots in Vancouver is Tearoom T. It's a place I go with my girlfriends on a Saturday afternoon. We have wept and cried over clotted cream and jam and fabulous scones made by Leslie Stowe. They come in exotic flavors like chocolate cherry hazelnut and chocolate espresso pecan. They inspired scone envy in me, so I needed to do some research on the subject. I finally came up with this recipe: Lemon Yogurt Scones 2 c. flour 2 tbsp. sugar 1 tbsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 cup cold butter 1 cup yogurt grated rind of one lemon Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut up butter into pea-sized pieces and work with your fingers into the flour mixture until it's combined and the butter is in even smaller bits-like you would to make pastry. Add the yogurt and lemon rind and mix until combined. Pat the dough into a circle one inch thick and cut into 2 inch rounds using a glass or scone-cutter. Bake at 425 Degrees F for 12-14 minutes. I put a bit of Tuscan ham and Dijon mustard on them for little sandwiches. These scones would be good with marmalade, lavender jelly or strawberries and whipped cream. You can vary the flavor of the yogurt to add interest and add chocolate, dried cherries-you name it! They are good with jasmine green tea. Autumn Variation: substitute 1/2 cup oatmeal for 1/2 cup of the flour, and add 1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts (leave some pieces nice and big for extra crunch!). Use buttermilk instead of yogurt. These are really good with baba ganouj!

Salmon Candy!

Oops, can't forget the stollen!

Pane e Fromaggio's many delights. The owner was gracious enough to let me snap some shots inside. I bought some Poplar Grove Tiger Blue and and other goodies.

I went to this store to get some maple salmon nuggets: They are soft sweet, and unctuous, best served at room temperature. The salmon candy was more chewy and a touch more savory with the garlic. At the Sustainability luncheon at C this summer we had salmon candy dipped in this amazing mixture, like a spicy gomashio. I wish they'd sell it, because it's really elevates the candy to a new level. What's this? Could it be the free range Christmas Octopus? "Mom, I want the biggest tentacle!" "You've got ten suckers on that one and it's big enough." "Where's the wishbone, dear?" I found some interesting first Nations wild-harvested products at the store. I bought a little jar of jam for a stocking stuffer: "Three Fruit/ A First nations Product Wild Harvested/Ingredients: Blackcap, choke cherry, Saskatoon, sugar, pectin." I found a reference to these Siska Traditions products from Lytton B.C. in this interesting article in the about harvesting wild produce in B.C. in the Georgia Straight. . This is where I bought the garlic salmon candy.The proprietor was very sweet and asked me to taste the product. He said kids come in and buy it all the time instead of chips or pop, which pleased him very much. I went to Mix Bakery to grab a loaf of toasted sunflower bread and I had a quick bowl of hot and nourishing Rancho Bean Soup.

So my idea for solstice was to make cute little pine cone bird feeders filled with sunflower seeds to bring to the farm with Ullie to hang on the trees for the song birds.That will have to be for next year, or maybe even next week. Anyway, I popped out to the farm on the bus (we don't own a car), and it was good timing because there was a warm wind blowing and it stopped raining and lightened up a bit. The feruginous hawk that overseas the farm was screeching out his songs of bravado as I went to chat up the chickens. The lucky girls have a full-time hunky chicken sitter who lives on the farm to keep them safe. Before they did this, someone let the chickens out one night and the coyotes got them all. The idea for my 100 Mile Solstice Tart was to source ingredients as close to home as possible. All week I've been asking Peter: "How many miles to Victoria? How far away is Saltspring?" My B.C. geography isn't very good yet.The great thing about this game is that I had to ask the shopkeepers what the "closest" ingredient (say cheese, for instance) they had to offer me. It was fun, and a good way to strike up a conversation. At the farm office Mark Bomford told me the chickens eat organic feed produced in Langley from grains grown in Alberta. I asked if they're going to have a fundraiser to fix their ailing tractor and he said they're hoping someone can donate them a used one that works. It was great to be back at the farm in a completely different season. A few bees were active in front of the hives. Everything was very quiet, patiently waiting for the longer days to come.

Do I know you lady? The children's garden plots for an education program that pairs elementary school children with retired farmers.

I also spotted stolen at Mix bakery and Pane e Fromaggio on W10th today. The one at the latter looked particularly good. Zuke

Thanks for your warm comments girls. I hope the Goddess of the feminist Utopia didn't scare all the guys! Boy are my teets tired. I've been to UBC Farm and trekking over on the west side doing some urban foraging. I took loads of photos. The chickens are very happy today and I got some lovely eggs. The savory tart is in the oven, so the scent of rosemary is tiptoeing up the stairs. I got the whole wheat rosemary crust recipe from "Once Upon a Tart...: Soups, Salads, Muffins, and More from New York City's Favorite Bakeshop and Café by frank Mentesana and Jerome Audreau with Carolyn Carreño." It is a really GOOD recipe and a great cookbook. Now what is a savory tart? It's really a quiche by another name but lower to the ground, filled only with enough of the egg mixture to bind all the lovely ingredients. It's a perfect clean the fridge out kind of meal. I'll go through all the ingredients later when I post the photos. For appies we had two kinds of salmon candy, one with maple syrup, pepper, and garlic, and one with maple syup only. I bought two kinds of cheese and toasted pumpkin seed bread (from Mix Bakery). We're drinking a 1991 Tinhorn Creek Cabernet Franc which was splintery yesterday, but i quite nice with a bitter cherry flavour today. Needs more cellar time. Photos coming! Zuke

Hi Sarah, you night owl! Thanks for sharing your Christmas traditions I hope you have a lot of fun and good wine this year. Ullie loves his chocolate fondue, by the way. We dipped Cape Gooseberries from Columbia in the melted chocolate and they were divine! It's like a tropical vacation in itself-notes persimmon, passion fruit, orange. They had them at Choices and the South Seas trading Co. They are nothing like the ground cherries grown here. Also, talk about an aphrodisiac-hubba hubba! Christmas traditions: You know I always used to sing a solo in church at Christmas, since I was very young. However, since I'm a bit of a lapsing Lutheran I've missed a couple of years. I really miss that this year. Our family is big on stocking stuffing and it would be very strange not to do that. You'll see the stocking booty on Christmas morning. My mom hunts all year for them and if she sees you admiring something she has a magical way of making sure it ends up in your stocking! I make the cookbooks every year and calendars using reproductions of vintage family photos. We often see the lights at Van Dusen Gardens, but I don't mind skipping a year. My aunt in Saskatoon always sends Peter a hunk of her Malaysian Love Cake which is a dense caked with toasted nuts soaked in rosewater syrup. It keeps our love alive! We used to have a hot pot (with hot coals) at Christmas at her house and chicken biryani made with dried cranberries instead of raisins. Dad likes hot buttered rum. I like going toboganning. Board games-my Aunt Mary is a killer Scrabble player. In fact I got Ullie a Junior Scrabble board at a flea market for Christmas. My sister has a WIDE screen tv, so I must admit I have late night binges on movies and the Food Network since we don't have cable. Mom's birthday! December 27, where we will make Schmoo Torte which is her fave. I kind of like one family disagreement, just to give the holidays a little edge-a cranberry tartness if you will. Christmas without conflict is a little flat, don't you think? The Christmas we were all trapped inside in a blizzard for days was a bit scary though. Gosh, tomorrow we fly. I'm so excited! So I cleaned out the fridge, which wasn't so bad after all. However, I deduced that the smell is coming from underneath the refrigerator. Made a batch of cookies from some batter Ullie won at a Christmas party. Did a bit of prep for tonight's supper. Now Ullie wants me to do a puzzle with him. He's going to stay here with his aunt Nancy while I treck out to the farm in the rain.

Perhaps Prague? ← Actually, it's Lyon. Peter and I spent a week there about six years ago. Never have I seen a whole city in such a bad mood. There were strikes everywhere, halting the trains that bring in all the visitors from Paris. It was bonechillingly cold and windy. I thought I'd be fine ordering from menus with my grade douze french, but I should have researched all the local specialties which have their own names. Shopkeepers were glum and taciturn. I asked the proprieter of a health food store for "jus de canneberge" and he almost bit my head off. Once I ordered a Salade Lyonaise, thinking it would be greens but it was an egg poached on sweetbreads with lardons. Not a great thing for me at the best of times and with jet lag I almost gagged. We did find a few sweet spots though, most notable a restaurant that served cuisine from the Seychelles called Le Jardin de L'Octopus or something like that. The chef came around and chatted with us because he was a sailor and knew English. We ordered a half bottle of Tavel and they gave us a whole one. That was unique and memorable. I'd like to revisit Lyon under different cirumstances and I would brush up on my French food terms before I went. The light is beautiful though, isn't it? That photo wasn't even taken with my Nikon SLR, just a little point and shoot. Oh, and I love their pedestrian bridges. I wish Vancouver had them!

Happy Solstice from the Goddess of the Feminist Utopia! I dreamt I was Saskatchewan in my elevating bra. I am the Goddess of the Feminist Utopia that is Saskatchewan: Goddess of wheat and teet, Goddess of flat land and buxom women, Goddess of bus strikes and uncooperative co-operatives. I come from an island in the middle of Saskatchewan There aren't many of us, but we all dress like this, and we all sing like this: Mmoooahh ahh! Calling all feminist outlaws, Come to Saskatchewan and build your collective dream home. Make your bed and breakfasts for the revolution. Get away from the crime, high cost of living, and pollution. Mmooeeeeeeee! This is the age of post-patriarchal enlightenment, and the barbwire fences humm with excitement! Rise up to the glory of the new organic state We plan to lift and separate Saskatchewan from her patriarchal bookends. We hijack semi trucks from Alberta, recycle their products and eat their food. (We also milk the drivers for their sperm and stock-pile futons, but that's another story.) Vacation at our feminist theme park Win a medal at the feminist games. We interrupt this special bra-cast from the Goddess of the Fem Ut. to bring you back to our regularly scheduled programming. Well, there you go...someone asked what kind of performing I do and that's an excerpt from an old cabaret piece. I have training in classical singing (I love Schubert leider), visual art, and physical theatre. I have worked in a variety of media, but my earlier work was more like Fringe theatre and cabaret. Peter and I create interactive installations, often with an audio component. I am working on a performance and auditory beehive for next year that will hopefully be installed in a couple of public gardens next summer. I am creating a character that will be an Edwardian theosophist who speaks to bees. Like many artists I been employed in various jobs in the food industry: waitressing in Saskatoon and Glasgow, slinging vegetarian haggis in Edinburgh, and pulling lattes in Vancouver. Let me say I am much better at playing a waitress on stage than I am in reality and I'd like to apologize to all of my former customers and I confess I can't make a decent Americano to save my life! Okay, that was cathartic. Today we'll be visiting UBC farm, and performing that time old pagan solstice ritual of cleaning out the fridge... because it stinks! Sadly, the solstice potluck was cancelled because of unfinished renovations, but we will still make the pumpkin tart and have it at home. I also want to go out for a surprise treat. I don't even know what it is yet. Okay, wish me luck, this fridge may require surgical maneuvers I am barely capable of performing without being under anaesthetic.

^snacky_cat, I like where you're going with that perogy exchange idea--but it's so fun to make them with other people. I say an mammoth eGullet perogy bee and subsequent feast! I'm beat. My typing shoulder's seized up. I'm working on a Mac 9500--do you know how slow it is...?boohoohoo! Anyway we had the leftover goulash tonight which I put some red wine and the leftover rotkraut into. I had a dreamy bowl of the rice pudding-those cherries plump up and they're enormous! MMM... a spoon of pudding alternating with a bite of Thomas Haas Chocolate. I really will have sweet dreams! G'night y'all.

^You know what though--in this case-well they just happened to be women--they weren't raucous at all. It was the distorting effects of the acoustics on the upper register tones in their combined laughter. They were very self-conscious about it. The sound of women laughing is normally a very beautiful thing!

Has anyone tried this place called JR Take out and Eat in-4530 Fraser Street, tucked in to that wierd Alpine mini mall of Fraser at 29th Ave? I have the menu on my desk and it looks incredibly cheap and has foods on it I've never hear of before. What is Mutton Pittu Kotthu? Curried Bitter Cot? What are Milk Hoppers? Fried Chili, Paysam and Rasam? What is this Lamp Rice, which must be ordered in advance? Oh, they deliver. (604) 708-3008. Still, I wouldn't know what to order. It's a tiny place. I'm curious. Zuke

I agree with this. I went there for an intimate double birthday, sat in the back room and jumped about six feet in the air every time the large table next to us laughed. We talked ourselves hoarse in minutes, and I had a really hard time of it. I'd like to go back and give it another try. Maybe I'll ever bring my niece-in-law! :wink: Zuke

gingerfreak, Get your partner to tell them that it's your birthday so you get treated especially well. I think staff have fun when they know you've chosen that place for a special occasion. Zuke

PICA does one, down on granville island, but phone first, as I'm not sure when they close for the season. Otherwise, the European Bakery/Konditerei on Fraser, at about 50th has a wall of stollen. I haven't tried it and I find their baking oversweet, but you never know-might be good! Zuke