Zucchini Mama

I was reading my perogie primer to get up to speed for tomorrow. It's called "a Feast of Perogies and Dumplings and other scrumptious pockets and pastries filled with all sorts of cultural tastes." It is written by a former member of a Hutterite colony and amateur dumpling lover Samuel J. Hofer. I seem to have a small collection of cookbooks based on one food item or ingredient. I have an entire cookbook on how to cook with bulgar wheat and another one on squid. I also have an autographed copy of The Gilligan Island Cookbook signed by the author who played Mary Anne on the show. Anyhow, here is a poem I wrote with a perogy reference. Maybe Pamela Reiss will recognize the story as it's inspired by a woman in Winnipeg. (Just a note to say that these poems are all works in progress, so bear with me!) Escape When I see a doughnut shop on the prairies I think of her. The woman who left the Hutterite colony to work alone in the city. Did she walk off the farm down a dirt road, one of those blue sky yellow brown-eyed Susan kind of days? Or was it an adrenaline moonlit night, wet grass on bare ankles? Homemade rucksack sewn of plain black polyester scraps steering clear of telltale polka dots. No wonder she didn't even know how to use the city bus they'd say, pink farm-cream cheeks. Someone must have taken her in. A Salvation Army or church basement potluck. Some sympathetic soul embraced her and gave her a new place to sleep. Got a job at the local doughnut shop, mopping floors, selling humble sugared daydreams. Thinking to herself is this coffee cigarette bathroom freshner freedom? Eventually, she managed her own doughnut shop, became a one-woman underground railway for others who dared leave. Formed kinships with them, over Sunday night dinners with store-bought perogies and homemade prayers. LDW 2002

Okay, so half of the quince are burbling away on the stove top and the house is filled with the their lovely sweet smell. It's kind of a bittersweet to wash the lovely fuzzy bits off the skin of a quince, like you're removing its comforter. The warm water released its quintessential aroma which reminded me of the day we bought quittenschnappes at a farmer's market in Austria. The woman selling it said it was particularly good for women's health. I'll drink to that! I put some lovely dried porcini mushrooms in hot water for the goulash, and I'm steeping ginger, cloves, cardamom, and a pinch of cayenne to make homemade ginger beer. All the windows are steamed up in the kitchen and poor Ullie has that throat bug, so he is cuddled up on the couch listening to Prince Caspian's voyages on a CD. Jamie Maw, you crack me up. The day we made Cornish game hens with raspberry balsamic glaze on daytime tv, the birds were cooked by your searing wit. I just had some mineralwasser and a piece of grandpa C's stolled with low fat ricotta. Now I've got to cook the other quince. Zuke

The honey I'm using for the jam is wildflower honey from UBC Farm. Here's a journal entry about the farm from this summer. Farm Time "One of the casualties of progress is peace and quiet." Jeannette Winterson, Art Objects, 1995 I am over-stimulated. Traffic noise, computer noise, radio and television static is peeling the protective coating off my nerves. I grew up surrounded by silence and the subtle sounds of life in the middle of the prairies. I grew up in a childhood where even my thoughts were silent and pictorial. Apart from the music that criss-crossed my daydreams, I was generally shy and nonverbal. It has taken me a long time to become comfortable with words, and even now my own speech feels like a second or third language. My love of poetry comes from trying to uncover that lost daydream language of my childhood, born of living close to a quiet land. I live in Vancouver, but really I got lost somewhere between Saskatchewan and the Pacific Ocean. It has been difficult to find my niche as when I left home I lost my sense of being grounded. I love the ocean, and by that I mean I love to look at the ocean. I love the sound and sparkle of the ocean, but it is not where my spirit resides. I most attracted to sky, earth, and rocks. I am looking for a place where I can breathe. It is for this reason I feel myself drawn to the farm just down the road. Let me be clear. I did not live on a farm. I lived in a small hamlet, but my backyard was a field of wheat. In one minute I could walk to the strip of natural prairie around the railway track and then in a few seconds I could be under the barbed wire fence into a moderately grazed pasture. This pasture was full of the Plains Prickly Pear Cacti that gave our hamlet its name: Cactus Lake. This town has only two permanent residents left: my mom and my dad. Cactus Lake is one of many disappearing towns. Part of it resides in me. Living in the city sustains and inspires me. Living in the city depresses and erodes me. I need a break. I need a place to mend the wear and tear of everyday life as an urban mother. I need to put my feet in the earth and my hands in the grass. I need to retune my ear to birdsong and grasswhisper. I need to walk to the farm that's just off my bus route. What will I find at the UBC farm? I don't know what I'm going to write. Maybe I won't write. Maybe I'll pull a few weeds or maybe I'll just lay on my back and look at the sky. I am very excited about the options of what I can do on the farm. I don't want to disrupt the work that goes on there. I just want to blend in and become a part of the scenery. Maybe you'll see me there, the woman deep in thought, deeply inside another time--farm time. "When did seasons become fiscal quarters?" -Starbucks ad on a bus stop near UBC farm I spent an hour at the farm this morning. (I also spent less than five dollars on organically grown cauliflower, kohlrabi and radishes). I spent time, I spent money and in return I received a quiet place to think, remember, and imagine. How do you put a value on silence? How do you commodify an hour spent dreaming on the grass next to the intelligent bustle of a sunwarmed apiary? It's impossible to express the value of this land in purely monetary terms. So my task this summer is to describe its value in other terms, using the tools I have as a writer, as an artist and as a gal from the prairies. Some would say this land is worth a million dollars. In the words of agricultural land reserve protection activist and soil expert Dr. Susan Ames: "Some farmers like to grow condos." So the problem is if we don't convince the community of the cultural, historical and spiritual value of this land, it too, could be "farmed" for condos. I can't even bear the thought. Can you? LDW July, 2005 "Silence and noise do not seem to me to be equivalents. When I was growing up, without a bathroom, without a car, without a telephone, without central heating, without a record player, without money, silence was free and not far away. Now it is a marketable commodity and more expensive than a good seat at Covent Garden." Jeanette Winterson, Ibid.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful... Let it Rain Let it Rain Let it Rain... Brrrr. A good day to stay in and make jam. I think there was caffeine in the coffee last night. I didn't sleep much. Feel about as fresh as the spinach on a broiled oyster. I was woken by the loud polka music in my dream at four in the morning. I guess the house was dreaming. I wish it would dream more quietly. Bobby Vinton at four A.M. is too much. I think the house is very excited about cooking prairie soul food. It occurred to me that we must make goulash today. I searched through my cookbooks and found no good recipes for goulash. I guess it's one of those foods I have really taken for granted. I thought it was ubiquitous. Of course in Vienna there's a museum of goulash. (Gulaschmuseum, 1 Schulerstrasse.) From the Time Out Guide to Vienna, " There are always at least fifteen types of goulash to choose from on the daily menu: forget the normal beany goulash thing and go for the chicken liver goulash, fish goulash, or even chanterelle goulash, for vegetarians." I could go for chanterelle goulash! I was imagining what a museum of goulash might be like: people eating in hushed tones as a security guard hovers near the ancient art of goulash display. I feel a culinary mystery coming on that could be made into a movie starring Roberto Benigni at the bumbling detective. "Who could have stolen the medieval cabbage shredder? What's more who would have murdered for it? Roberto Begnini fights culinary crime in a city where goulash is king." Or, it could be a novella about a travelling goulash museum. One man drives across Canada and spreads the good news goulash to isolated rural housewives, falling in love with a zaftig frau who lives near covered bridges.... Wait a minute, that's been done. Anyway, good morning! I'm off to make some quince jam. Please say a prayer to the patron saint of preserved foods for me. Thanks Matt R. for your post. I treasure it, and it's exactly the kind of response I'm looking for. Maybe it's fate that I didn't make the jam yesterday, and now I can do it well, I hope. Darcie B. Thanks for the history. I really appreciate that. I love learning about people's family history. I did a project a couple of summers ago researching dying prairie towns and just got so caught up in the stories of the settlers. There's a good book I'm going to reccomend to you. I'll search for it. Pam, here is some info on Cactus Lake Jamie, I loved your Christmas story, and why don't you make it into a children's book? Abra, Kooky loves what Kooky does and thanks for the recipe!

Ullie with "croysant" My favorite shucker cookie ingredients a goody from the Fraser deli fat chocolate pretzels Loganberry was one of the original Vancouver Island wines. avocado lovin' with pepper grinder/shakers from Italy Chocolate with the little whisk I use to foam it up

Why that's right nayyyybourly of you Jamie! Make sure Eva gets some licorice tea and propylis throat spray. I had that nasty throat bug a week ago. Pan, I am German, English, Irish, Scottish. My grandpa, who was German and from whom I have received my surname is Lutheran German. He came here to avoid being drafted into the Nazi Youth party. This was much later than most of the settlers of the St. Joseph's Colony, who considered themselves "German Russian" because of the way the borders were shifting at the time they left to come to Canada. My great grandpa on my dad's side was a cowboy of British ancestry who lost his first wife in a tornado in Nebraska. His wife was a secretary from Chicago who got a bit of a shock when she ended up in Luseland, Saskatchewan (birthplace of vancouver businessman Jimmy Pattison). She went from typing memos to plucking geese, and other elegant fowl. (She's the one on stage left.) KatieLoeb, I am a longtime admirer of your posts. Gegenbauer is special. have you been to Artner? Moosh, I hope Noah has given you a long list for Santa to keep you busy! Happy Holidays! rjwong, I am touched as gemütlichkeit is one of my favorite words and I try to use it once a day, preferably in the act of consuming chocolate! Hello everyone. Well, the camera battery conked out tonight, so I'm going low tech. Actually, I always feel a bit awkward taking photos at a guest's house, so I was able to really be present in the evening, which was a blessing. We live in an era of blogging, an over-documented era of railing against the inevitable organic loss of memory. Since we are humans, not cyborgs, perhaps it is more natural and comfortable to use the software we were born with to remember what is at the heart of life, that which is invisible and can not be recorded. At the same time, there is an art to making someone comfortable enough to ask them to document their lives. My dad has that skill. He is an excellent amateur photographer with a knack for putting people at ease. It's one of those life skills you spend your life working on. I love his photographs of community events. You know, I love an evening of great food, but when you can say the conversation was even richer, that's a great night. I am truly lucky to have such generous in laws. We started with Sumac Ridge Stellar Jay Brut. This is a B.C. bubbly that has an incredible balance of the richness of ripe yellow apples, and a crisp grapefruit acidity. After the dryness of the Cava this morning, it almost tasted of apple cider to me in comparison. This is a robust, medium-bodied bubbly with dimples in both cheeks. Okanagan sunshine. We had the Leslie Stowe cranberry and hazelnut crisps for starters along with some parmesan pastry thins. Then we had a simple meal of barbecued salmon with steamed beans, carrots and roasted potatoes. The wine with them meal was the 2003 Nichol Vineyards Pinot Gris from Naramata B.C., which happens to be one of my favorites. It is salmon in color. It married well with the salmon, having again a bit of the cranberry pink grapefruit acidity that cuts the oiliness of the fish. Ullie ate well. I was proud of him. He loves his grandma's potatoes. Someone should do a study of children's eating habits in large family sittings. I bet they eat more within such a group. It seems to be a natural inclination. For dessert we had an old fashioned mince pie--the kind that separates the "flexitarians" from the vegetarians. Now this pie is very citrusy and rich and I would have believed it contained suet, but I must admit I was a bit surprised that it contained minced beef. I mean when it's served with whipped cream and Warre's Warrior Port, it just tastes like Christmas. It's almost as though port was made for mince meat pie. That combination of fresh, dried and stewed cherries and plums just helps me experience the music of the lemon and orange peel in the pie. I noticed the vegetarian at the table declined the pie. She knows the beasts that lurk therein. I also noticed that my MIL said that next year she might leave out the meat altogether. The ghost of Christmas future brushed against the back of my chair. So I asked Grandma and Grandpa C. about their memories of Christmas, particularly when they were five years old. Grandma C.: "I was a bit of a troublemaker, so I was sent to my aunt and uncles' place. They gave us each two or three presents each: a pair of skates or skis and a couple of items of handmade clothing. My dad had caught tuberculosis in WWI where he fought at Vimy Ridge, so he was spending a lot of time at the San. He had been found in the trenches by the search dogs on the last go around. Otherwise they'd have left him for dead. He had a shattered leg, and an injured shoulder." Grandpa C: "I have vivid memories of the orphanage where I lived. I remember getting in trouble for throwing a snow ball through the window. I remember the food was terrible." Well, if living well is the best revenge, he has certainly had his. He is a member of the Commanderie de Bordeaux a Vancouver, and has a cellar full of some of the world's most beautiful wines. Tonight he is very excited that he found a Golden Mile pinot noir in a local restaurant that is velvety, full of red fruit, but subtle and well-structured. I treasure the education I have received from him. Both of them remember a favorite Christmas when they were young and in love and she knitted him a pair of wool argyle socks. "Oh, they were red socks with a white and gold argyle pattern." She describes them vividly as if she's holding them out to me in her hands. One of Ullie's aunts works in a café that was recently trashed in a review in the Globe and Mail. I told her about all the gossip on the Vancouver eGullet forum. She was nonplussed, as is her style. Another of the cousins has recently been to Argentina, so he was telling me about the Yerba Mate culture there, which intrigued me. Giggles, gossip, politics and philosophy. I'll take them all. Since Grandpa C. used to be a surgeon, I have to have a conversation with him about the recent "face transplant" case--fascinating. Okay, if I can stay awake, I'll post some of the day's photos. If not, sweet dreams of port, sugar plums et al. Zuke

Okay, my server's back up! The jar lids I bought yesterday don't fit my collection of used jars, so there was a change of plans. I made cookies instead: Chocolade Brezeln. These are pretzel-shaped cookies that are made of a dough that is not very sweet at all. The glaze you put on top lifts them just to the point of desired sweetness. I will pick up some jam lids tonight and make jam tomorrow, and glaze the cookies for the party. The oysters were out of this world. Peter put a bit of wilted spinach, and tiny slivers of prosciutto, the drunken goat, and roasted garlic on each one, and then put them into the oven until they were piping hot. I like my oysters hot and barely cooked. I soaked up the extra juices with a croissant-very decadent! We drank a Freixenet Brut with a touch of Marley Loganberry wine in it to give it a subtle kiss of the raspberry-cranberry tartness. Also, Zucchini Mama needed her chocolate, so I made some hot chocolate with a part of Dagobar chocolate bar melted in milk. I have been going through all the Dagobar flavours and doing this. So far I've done the lavender, the roseberry and todays xocolatl (dark chocolate, chilies, and nibs), which was fantastic with a real bite. The sun's already leaving us with a lavendar sky. Where did the time go? Evaporated. I will post this afternoon's photos after dinner late tonight. Lori in PA, You spell your name the same way I do! I like that drunken goat. I'm going to taste it against some Manchego so I can give you a better description. It seems like quite a versatile cheese. Peter is lactose intolerant, so we go for the goat and the sheep. I LOVE pecorino made in Chase B.C. Ling, I love baking. It really grounds me. I'll leave you all with a story about my oven. Remember in his last story Jamie talked about his mom's Moffat oven? The Hole in the Heart of the Kitchen I've lost my oven. The hearth at the center of my kitchen has been taken away, and a cheap imposter has taken her place. We bought this circa 1913 house, about five and a half years ago. The former owner insisted on taking one set of kitchen appliances with her, but she left us a big old gas range, circa 1959. It was sturdy, dependable, and the style of the oven fit right into the vintage kitchenware I have collected over the years. It was a simple range, without a clock, timer, or light. Her shoulders were rounded and sturdy, like those of a strong woman who has weathered many storms. The sloped corners mimic the back of vintage porcelain sink I insisted on keeping intact. She was simply elegant. There was a neat sign pinned to her smooth white breast that said "Moffat" in wide Art Deco letters. This summer my oven stopped working. Four months later, motivated by the approaching Christmas cookie season Peter called a repairman. The guy in the monkey suit took one look at our beautiful oven and said "That girl's too old. We haven't been able to get parts for that model for years." I took it upon myself to track down the repairman who would give it a better shot. I explained my situation to the receptionist with whom I had a few terse telephone exchanges to get the service organized. I became that woman with the old Moffat. "Hi, I'm the woman with the old Moffat and I thought you were supposed to service my oven today." Anyway, the repairman said he could get us a newer model, a 1965, for the same amount of money it would cost for a gas valve on the old one. I was pleased, thinking the newer model would look just about the same, but maybe with a couple of extra cute antiquated features like built in salt and pepper shaker holders. As we walked home from school the next morning, I told Ullie how excited I was that we were getting this new appliance. He started to cry, and say how much he loved the old one. He doesn't like things that seem like permanent fixtures in his life to change. I chuckled inside at his sense of attachment, but when we arrived home, I felt the same way he did, only worse. The "new" old stove had harsh pointy edges, the metal was thinner and cheaper than our old Moffat. It had smaller and has rusted edges. I realized that in the old Moffat even the burners had lovely rounded corners. There is no beautiful brand name, and the back of the stove has an ugly black hole and two bolts where a clock and timer used to be. I felt sick. I felt disoriented and sad, so sad. A deep sadness entered my heart that was too deep to call mine alone. That's when it occurred to me that another woman who used to live in this house was touching me with her loss. She had left the house long ago, driven out by an abusive husband that "used to walk around the neighborhood with a butcher knife." I'm sure this house has many stories, and hers is likely the most tragic. I have never felt any bad "vibes" inside these walls. One day I found a paper doll of a young woman with her arms raised in fear, but I felt that the people who used to live here had all moved on. The day we took out the oven, her oven, I think we removed what had been anchor in the woman's storms. The oven had provided the mother with a means of self-comfort, solitude and nourishment in the midst of her troubles. I had been lucky enough to receive this oven, this blessed oven, and use it to ground me and nourish our own small family for five years. I wanted to embrace it and thank it for sustaining me, but now it was gone, and I resented the usurper that had taken its place. I waited for the repairman to bring me a missing rack. As he turned to leave, I told him I wanted the old oven back. I tried to articulate how I felt, but was struck dumb by the necessity to speak in purely practical terms. He gently explained to me that it was cost prohibitive to keep the old stove and unless it was a collectible, the investment was not worth it. The parts were too expensive. I choked down my sadness and accepted the truth. "I threw in a fifty dollar oven rack there too, he says. "You're gettin' a good deal." I know. I know. How do you explain it's not about the money? It's about the memories. Forgetting to put the sugar in my son's first birthday cake. Roasting our first truffled turkey and coming come from church "seeing" the fragrance seep from all the cracks in the house as if it were painted in light. Warming bottles, whisking hot chocolate, popping popcorn, making play dough, paella, risotto. The oven is the hearth, the heart of our home. I will miss the old Moffat, but now I guess have a new machine that needs some TLC. This is the start of a new chapter in our lives: new adventures, new disasters, and a new appreciation for the warmth, the fire and the food. A photo of the oven the day before they took it away.

Christmas on Fraser Street I live in a great neighborhood for food-lovers. Hop on the bus one way and in twenty minutes you're in China Town. Hop on the bus going south and you're in the Punjabi market in ten minutes. Yesterday I decided to explore another street known for its ethnic eats: Fraser. I hopped on the bus to 49th and Main, where you'll see these banners. Then I hopped the bus to, which takes about seven minutes. There are a lot of shops like this in the hood: I stopped at the the Fraser Delicatessen and picked up a few goodies I'll talk about later. Then I bought a few cookies at the European Bakery. The cookie s are too sweet for me, but Ullie loved them, of course. Spritz Cookies Chocolate-covered gingerbread Father Christmas cookies

Christmas Tradition Number Two Part of my survival strategy for this year is to try to practice mindfulness and the rituals I use to stay grounded when the pressure to "perform Christmas" is heavy on my mind. There is a tricky balance to keeping the celebration simple without losing the connection to one's own expectations and dreams of Christmas. For me, much of this revolves around the traditions of food. Every Christmas for three years I have been making a family cookbook to give to close friends and family. It is usually a collection of recipes from family and friends as well as selections from our family's current repertoire. By the time Ullie's ready for college, he'll have a collection of all the family recipes so he can make them for himself. This year, I've done things a bit differently and created a bit of a "farmer's almanac" type booklet with anecdotes, family photos, and bits of food-related flotsam and jetsam I found floating about on my desk. Collecting all these bits and pieces helps me to focus on celebrating what amazing meals I have enjoyed over the past year. This year's book is called "Super Foods for Super Heroes." Peter and Ullie are downstairs assembling a few of the cookbooks right now. Brunch has been interrupted by Lego building and gift wrapping. I had my lovely avocado sandwich, and found that a little Gegenbauer pumpkinseed oil really elevated the sandwich, heightening the herbal notes in the Drunken Goat. Images will come later. (Our photo system's complicated here, so the photos will always be a bit behind the verbal pictures.) You must visit Gegenbauer if you're in Vienna in the Naschmarkt. A very serious woman will ask you to taste before you buy, and there are many levels of "toast" in the types of oil. We've been to Austria a few times and really love it. Careful with the oil, that lovely loden green will stain your clothes to match your lederhosen! p.s.: Abra, I'm always up for a chocolate zucchini cake recipe to add to my collection!

Abra, you lived in Regina! I have some really good friends there, and will be performing there next summer and checking out the local food again. I hope you come up and visit us soon to get your cedar jelly. *Deborah*, Mr. Maw is a hard act to follow. He took us on a first class trip, and this week we'll be flying economy! What is the Theme of This Blog? "Take away this pudding, it has no theme." -Winston Churchill We are a family who loves themes. When it is my mother's run to host Christmas, she always has one traditional prairie meal and one "theme" meal. The theme of this meal is "Christmas in another culture." I remember one year we had a Danish Christmas and I won the prize in my piece of pudding. Come to think of it, it's luck I didn't choke on the dime she put in the dessert, because it would have just fit the circumference of my trachea. (She took the dime and exchanged it for a box of Callebaut chocolates!) Anyhow, I survived the Danish Christmas meal to go on and cook the chicken mole for Mexican Christmas a few years later. I do remember scouring the Au Claire Market in Calgary for crawfish for the Creole Christmas, and one year we had tortière at our French Canadian Noël. As an interdisciplinary artist, I love the theatrical elements of birthday parties. My son has inherited the stage bug and now he helps me plan out the "sets" and "costumes" for his party. We decide on the theme months in advance and spend many afternoons hunting for ideas in book stores and thrift shops. Last year I created a knight in shining armor costume, a two-headed dragon piñata, and brightly coloured horses for whipped cream "jousting". We found an enchanted wood in Stanley Park and I assembled a cake shaped like a castle out of Philipino ube purple yam jelly rolls from the Goldilocks Bakery. We even went to a medieval dinner at a farm on Vancouver Island where we were chosen to act as the royal family for the evening. We sat at the head table and could drink all the warm, cheap white wine we wanted. This year's birthday theme was "Super Heros." This year, decorating for the party was a family affair. The theme was "superheroes". Ullie and I made cartoon thought bubbles and speech bubbles out of cardboard to hang up for decorations. Words like "pop", "arrgh", and "kaboom!" dangled from our chandelier and the lighting fixture above our dining room table. He helped me paint some of the signs and even if they were illegible, I just let it go. We made red and yellow lightening bolts out of bristle board and I spent many evenings adding layers to the Spider Man papier maché piñata. Fortunately Ullie decided he didn't want to wear a costume at this year's party, which saved me the time and energy making one, and the embarrassment of explaining why my son wants to be "Captain America." Okay, so this year, I'll admit had a bit of help in my effort to stay calm. I went away on a personal retreat on Saltspring Island the week before the birthday party. I had a lot of fun visiting with the parents and the kids had fun letting fly dozens of water balloons, which I dubbed "love bombs" in my post-yoga retreat state of bliss. This summer my son and I went to a lovely birthday party for one of his friends in Queen Elizabeth Park. We had a picnic lunch, a cake, and the kids ran around the duck ponds. One the way home Ullie looked a bit puzzled. He turned to me and asked "What was the theme, mom? So the theme of this blog is obviously Christmas with the Zucchini Family. Our son is five, some would say the perfect age for celebrating Christmas, and he loves it almost as much as Halloween. "She Bulk" (Feminine Anger Management Specialist) and the Green Goblin. Peter and I are both artists who love food. Ullie loves to try different kinds of food, and by this he means different kinds of chocolate, yogurt, and bacon. This Christmas my sister and her husband are hosting us. The theme of this Christmas is making our family's favorite foods and keeping it simple enough to enjoy the new baby, whom I am so excited to meet. We all need time to play with her brother and I need time to catch up on all the episodes of "Six Feet Under" that I missed! I wanted to have one meal that revolves around bison, since my passion with regards to sustainability is the preservation of natural prairie. Ironically, wholistically raised bison can live in harmony with natural prairie grasses and shrubs, where as plowing up the sod for crops like wheat, canola, and mustard have destroyed much of our natural prairie ecosystem. So let's eat that pemmican! The form of this blog will be a fugue in three voices: Christmas past, present, and the ghost of Christmas future. What will we be eating for Christmas in ten years?

When we go home for Christmas we always get a sleigh ride from our neighbor. (The one who raises horses as opposed to the one who taxidermies gophers.) Hey hi Daniel, thanks for the warm greeting. I love road trips as much as you do! Christmas Traditions Present: The School Christmas Pageant The School Pageant is one of those quintessentially North American Christmas traditions. Last week I went to my son's first Christmas pageant. It began in the dark, in the school gym with the choir singing a folk song about solstice, and bringing light into the "darkest hour." All the children in the school walking through the audience carrying candles by twos and threes. I was moved to tears. Then the concert continued with the usual quirks and hiccups that make an amateur concert so charming and loveable, and at times, hilarious. My son's school is made of a diverse cultural population and includes a few special needs kids integrated into the regular classrooms. "Joy to the World" and "The Hannukah Song" were almost played in tune. The curtains opened and closed in sharp jerks and snaps and the principal stood watching proudly in her festive red dress. A single Fresnel hung by the basketball hoop illuminated the grade threes performing an Inuit chant in American Sign Language. One grade did a rendition of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" complete with numerous sight gags and a little boy in green velvet suit and hair spray-painted to match. Girls in frilly velveteen frocks waved to their parents. My son's kindergarten class sang :"Do You Know Who Hibernates" to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?". Ullie waved jauntily at me, then left the stage with his finger up his nose. We ended the concert with a group sing along of three popular carols and left to enter the draw for a gift certificate at White Spot on the way out. On the walk home, I told my son how proud I was of him and he expressed concerns that we was thinking of moving out of Vancouver. "You talk about it all the time, mom." Hmmm, I didn't even realize that. He's worried we're going to leave behind all that is familiar to him, and what is still strange to me.

I like to start my day with a hot mug of Actually, I'm drinking organic white tea (from Jiangxi China) out of my vintage Medalta mug which is made in Medicine Hat, Alberta. I've just baked some fresh croissants, and the smell is wafting up the stairway to the studio where I am typing. Peter's washing dishes and Ullie's munching on a warm "croysant". This pronunciation comes from Peter's side of the family, even though many generations ago they were French Canadian. Actually, I got the croissants frozen from this place down the street. You take the croissants out the night before and leave them thaw and rise overnight. In the morning, pop them in the oven and fifteen minutes later, you've got crispy light freshly baked croissants. I like mine with avocado and cheese. We've got some "Drunken Goat" in the fridge. Peter's going to start shucking oysters in a bit. As a pre-Christmas gift, his dad always orders a big shipment of Malpeques from P.E.I. which he shares with the family. Peter's got a special recipe that involves spinach and a lot of garlic. Here's the quince we'll be using to make jam today. One even has a belly button! I love that each fruit has its own distinct personality. chrisamirault, I will have to check the cook-off. Mom and dad are making the sausages at the neightbor's house. It's usually a mix of pork, beef, and maybe some local game with lots of garlic and mustard seed. I told them to take lots of photos. I'm going to have my croissant and see how the oysters are coming.

Oh, I'm so excited. Did you know that when things are going well in a bee hive that bees do a little dance of joy just to communicate things are great? I'm doing my little joy dance! Thanks for the advice on the jam sushicat, and keep us posted on your BIG Christmas Dinner! azureus, I wanted to have at least one buffalo meal because Cochrane is surrounded by some lovely buffalo ranches. We'll set an extra plate for you! Chufi, how lovely to see your face! My friend Lysa gave us a lovely organic pumpkin from her garden in Maple Ridge. I want to honor it properly in a special tart. Now one of the biggest news stories this year was about two people in Vancouver who tried the "One Hundred Mile Diet". That is, they tried to eat food grown and produced within one hundred miles from their home. This exercise was documented in The Tyee online journal. I have yet to read the whole story, but I will do it today. I read the part about the happy chickens at UBC farm. Anyway as a new solstice ritual, I will try to make a one hundred mile tart, using only ingredients grown and produced within one hundred miles of Vancouver. chrisamirault! My lobster man! Yours was the first blog I ever read, so you have a special place in my heart. Also, I am nuts about lobsters, have read The Secret Life of Lobsters, and I'm thinking my next show will be called "The Lobster Monologues." How's the weather out there? Prairie soul food is the practical comfort food that colonies of settlers brought to the flatlands. I grew up in Cactus Lake Saskatchewan just a few miles from where kd laing was born. My grandparents were married in her home town of Consort, Alberta. The people I grew up with were "German Russian" catholics. They called themselves this because of their history. So, basically we have the slow foods of meat and potato variety-perogies, cabbage rolls, farmer's sausage, etc. I grew up with wonderful locally grown meat, dairy, and produce. One of my best memories is of fresh farm cream you could stand a spoon in served on mom's chocolate cake. Come to think of it, last night I dreamt I was a waitress serving chocolate cake with chocolate whipped cream. Have you had your reccomended daily requirement of chocolate today? Zuke

Actually, the sun is just beginning rise, but I know it's going to be another stellar day. I am so excited about Christmas, I'm beginning to wake earlier than usual. I thought I'd post our rough schedule below, and ask a couple of questions of you. Sunday, Dec. 18th: We'll have an oyster brunch at home and a pre-Christmas feast at my in-laws for dinner. I'll be making quince jam in the afternoon. So my first question is: can I substitute honey for sugar in the jam recipe? Monday, Dec 19: I'll be baking up a slew of cookies and making nusskipferl. I'm hosting an evening gathering with a few of my favorite wise women with cookies and chai after dinner. Dinner will revolve around a main dish made from carrots, chestnuts and shitake mushrooms. Tuesday, Dec. 20: Let's make perogies! Dinner will be braised lamb shanks and pumpkin spaetzle. Has anyone here made pumpkin spaetzle before? Wednesday, Dec. 21: We'll be heading to UBC farm to visit the happy chickens and pick up some eggs. Dinner will be a Solstice potluck at a neighbor's house: I'll be making a 100 Mile(?) Savory Pumpkin Tart. Thursday, Dec. 22: Fly to Calgary, and have a salmon dinner. Friday, Dec. 23: Buffalo stroganoff mit spaetzle Sat. Dec. 24: Christmas Eve: perogies and homemade sausage Sunday 25: We'll make a Crabby Wifesaver Christmas Breakfast and then open the gifts! Next comes the turkey dinner with all the fixin's. Now I'm going to grab a cup of tea, and then I'll tell you a bit about our family and our Christmas Traditions. Zuke

A Merry Zucchini Christmas to You! "Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a ...?" In this blog we'll be flying over the Canadian Rocky Mountains for Christmas in cowboy country. As they say in this household: "Keep yer fork Duke, there's pie!" Hello from sunny Vancouver! This is your Saskatchewan expat correspondent Zucchini Mama reporting from the funky boroughs of Little Mountain Neighborhood, just up the hill from Aurora Bistro. During this Christmas blog we'll be making and consuming some prairie soul food, baking up a storm, and heading to the rootin' tootin' town of Cochrane Alberta, birthplace of country singer George Fox and home of Bernie's Bavarian Bakery! Yee haw! Git along little dogies! This can be a challenging time of the year when psychological tectonic plates are shifting. Memories of holidays past suddenly bob to the surface, and the ghost of Christmas futures can inspire or haunt us. So let's all share our Christmas present: our culinary traditions and our survival techniques. (Sometimes they may be one and the same.) Whether you celebrate Kwanzaa, Hannukah, or you just hunker down for a binge of your favorite movies, tell us what you're eating this year. It would mean the world to me if you would put up a couple of "postcards" and a few words about what makes this specific Christmas or holiday special to you, with specific references to your family food traditions. (It would also take a bit of pressure off me as a first-time blogger who is relatively new to eGullet.) Besides, I'd love for this blog to be a kind of window on the world for my son Ullie to be able to enjoy for years to come--an educational thread and an aide-memoire of his fifth Christmas on earth. I am a big fan of eGullet and am drawn to it as if I was warming my hands around the hearths or stoves and ovens in people's kitchens all around the world. Some days it's like a global kitchen party. So come on in, pull up a comfortable chair, grab a snack and a drink and let's chat and cook. We'll have a giant eGullet potluck. I feel that since joining eGullet I have felt a renewed incentive to suck the marrow from life's bones, (particularly if the marrow is chocolate ganache, darling). So let's do it. Let's seize the carp du jour, chomp the char tartar, and take the time to stop and scratch and sniff the cocoa solids. Let the Zucchini Mama Christmas Party begin!

Jamie, Is the Coach House still open in Naramata. Is it good? Is it still almost impossible to get a table? You briefly mentioned the ALR, but I want to know more about the increasing pressure for developers to take over farm land in our province. Have you ever seen the Ogopogo? Zuke

Got quince at the December farmer's market from Snowy Mountain Fjords in Cawston. They are gorgeous. Zuke Napkin Sniffer, Quince Spotter

Please talk more about this dessert. Were the quince preserves or poached? How did the soufflé taste? Merci pour le blog. C'est formidable! Zuke

Another great place for a quiet vegetarian lunch is The Red Sea Café: Authentic Eritrean and Ethiopian Cuisine at 670 East Broadway (near Fraser). The prices have gone up since I was last there, but 11$ plus tip can get you a choice of four vegetarian dishes of your choice and plenty of injera. The meal is huge, too. I end up taking a large part of it home. The flavours are nuanced so that every bite is a revelation. Who knew that kale could taste this good? I did hear the bleeps of the microwave that make my heart sink, but hey this is one case where the food still has tons of flavor in spite of the heating method. It's slow food for fast times. If you want the slow-cooked version without the quick reheat, you have to make a night of it at Fasil just a few doors down. I went to a birthday there once, where with about twenty people you can basically fill one long communal table at the restaurant and have a lot of fun and good food. Murrils did a good review of The Red Sea Café in the Georgia Straight. Zuke

Sounds like the filling I had in a sandwich at the Halso Konditerei which is Swedish.

I think that's a great idea. These are the original "slow foods" and I believe we can really learn something from them. I made a grape pie for thanksgiving which used Concord grapes with seeds in them. When I was making it, it occured to me that with the development of new foods like seedless grapes some of these old recipes will be lost along with the heirloom breeds of fruit and vegetables. Also, I marvel at the resourcefulness of our ancestors who had to be creative with fewer tools and ingredients, especially during hard times. Zuke

By coincidence, I saw a Watkins salesperson set up in City Square Mall today.

Ah yes, not all cinammon is created equally. In fact you probably know what we are used to is not true cinnamon, but cassia bark. I bought some very nice "cinnamon" made from the...I'm blanking on the proper word here...from tiny twigs (?) of cassia as opposed to the bark. I bought it from the South Seas Trading Company in Granville Island Market. I absentmindedly threw the label in the recycling along with a part of my brain. It's beautiful cinnamon and made our French Toast taste extra special. Another thing I love to buy at this time of the year is powdered star anise from the Fraserview Deli. Opening the bag smells like entering the secret passage to Christmas! Zuke

Vegetarian Alert! I had a really lovely lunch at the Dharma Kitchen on 3667 West Broadway (near Alma). It was just the quiet respite I needed as an antidote to Christmas shopping craziness. The decor is simple, but done in bold jewel tones. I'm so glad that restaurants are getting past dusty rose of days gone by! I had a "Free Tibet Bowl" with the best tempeh I have ever eaten. It's got a nice vinegar kick. The bowl is brown basmati rice with a homemade tahini sauce, topped with steamed ginger, sunflower seeds the tempeh and sunflower sprouts. The tahini could have been kicked up a notch, as the rice itself is quite bland, but as long as you had the ginger or the tempeh with the rice it was delicious. The chai was cinnamon-centric, steamed soya milk-based and sweetened with honey. I think there may have been a touch of rosewater in it. There was definitely a secret ingredient. There is one server and one cook. The radical vegans at the table next to me talked loudly of their plans to sabotage the Vancouver restaurant that serves horse meat. The server was such a lovely person. When he took my order he just looked so delighted. Wow. It is just so inspiring to such genuine happiness. Priceless. They are on the route to UBC, but it's too bad they weren't right on campus, because they would thrive there. I hope they do well. Note that they have just the kind of spicy rice pudding I've been searching for and I was too full to try it, so I will be back soon! Zuke Edited to add: The other night our family went to the monthly Ukrainian dinner on W10th. They have a vegetarian option which I ordered (and then had them pour those lovely bacon and onion drippings on top)! I noticed there were a lot of teeny tiny babies at the dinner. For those of you with wee bairns, this is a great place for a night out with the family. No dinner in January due to it being Ukrainian Christmas, but there is a special Ukrainian Christmas buffet event that you can book tickets for in advance.

I am having very bad marshmallow karma. A few days back I tried making an egg white version with matcha (green tea powder). I made some very convincing pond scum. A spoonful tasted great in a cup of steamed milk, but after a few days I had to wash it down the drain. Then I found this thread and today I tried nightscotsman's recipe-- the chocolate version. I had bought a new electric hand mixer for the job and just when I was wondering how stiff to beat the peaks of marshmallow, the new car smell of the beater turned into the toxic fumes of burnt plastic and smoke was coming out of the top and the bottom of the beater. I quickly unplugged it and put it outside, where it is continuing to off gas at this very moment. Just a little warning not to make the same mistake I did! Hopefully they will taste okay. We'll test them tomorrow. So my question still remains. How stiff is too stiff? What is the empirical evidence of an overwhipped marshmallow? Also, how do the people who pipe their mallows do it without the "batter" dissolving in a pile of goop? Anyone know where to get a good used bowl mixer? Zuke