Kerry Beal

After lunch we stopped in at Tracy's to pick some raspberries. Tracy and her hubby live on the water - a property zoned for farming - they have a couple of horses. And raspberries!

Indeed - some sort of potato croquette with cheese and onion - forgotten the name they gave them - maybe potato bites?

Lunch today was at a lovely little campground in Sheguindah that I had driven by a million times before but never stopped at. I had to drop a form around on Friday and thought that the food smelled great and that the kitchen was open and clean - so when we found ourselves in the area today it was a perfect place to stop! Meals come with coleslaw. It was a very nice coleslaw. Liver and onions for Anna. Club sandwich with turkey - just the way I like it for me. One of the best meals we've had out on the island this trip.

One of the places we got to today was Pike Lake Farm for some eggs. Entertained by this partridge on the road - didn't stop for pictures of the baby skunk - didn't think it was wise.

Working on some tonic water syrup today. Hadn't brought any cinchona (or as Anna calls it chinchilla) bark along - so had to get hubby to mail it up in an envelope. Noticed the envelope had been opened and stapled back together - hope this happened at work and not at the post office (they usually leave you a little note of apology if they open something suspicious).

Yesterday - between trips into to the ER - I put together some blackcurrent jam with the berries we picked on Sunday. Ran the jars through the steam oven to sterilize them. Going to take a couple of jars this am and add some water and reboil - looking for a slightly looser texture!

Pork belly, cauliflower cheese - can you hear the crackling crunch?

I came, I ate, I'm heading back.

Cheese biscuits for rounds this morning.

Not one to muck with success - Summer Torte Blueberry edition. This will be for the ER staff - tomorrow morning I will make some cheese biscuits to take for rounds.

It was indeed - from our herb garden.

Look at this beautiful baby!

Sniff in another classic pose - accepting the intruders! Tonights libation - Rafa's The Man Comes Around. Not quite all the right ingredients - but quite satisfactory.

Figs are not something that grows here (although one of the docs has a tree that he takes in every winter and this year is produced) - I got these in the grocery store in espanola - $1.99 for the box of 14 - I couldn't leave them - they must have been labelled wrong (like $1.99 each)! Yup - was priced wrong - Loblaws has the cases on sale for $9.99 this week - score for me!

We have returned - a fruitful day away. Saw this little character on our way out - he was working on a bag of garbage on someones lawn in Aumdeck Omni Kaning (formerly the town of Sucker Creek). Stopped to get a picture of boats sailing along the north channel around Freer Point. Picking red currents with Myra. Some of Myra's animal life. She and Pierre have sheep and ducks this year - as well as their two horses. Hunger led us to Kagawong for lunch at the Main Street Cafe. Chicken pot pie soup and a souvlaki wrap for Anna and a chicken club wrap for me. Back home - going through our loot - some garlic, red and black currents. Sitting on the couch with pots and bowls on our knees cleaning off the leaves and stalks.

My next one will be blueberry too - perhaps later today.

Home made Cynar. Not as complex as the real thing - when I taste them side by each the real stuff has more vermouth flavours in it. Next batch will get some additional herbs.

Summer tart - fig edition! Will take it out to Myra's when we go to pick black and red currents today - along with some of emmalish's caramels and perhaps some booze.

I've used the frozen Highliner ones in paella when I've made it up here - they seemed pretty plump and nice to me. But in those days I wasn't a big mussel eater. Why don't you ask them if they can bring in one or two of the 907 gram vac packs for you?

Up until 2 years ago all we could get here were frozen too - then we saw the vacuum packed ones at Costco - and shortly after that in more of the supermarkets. They don't carry them on the island in any of the stores we've seen though. The dates on these ones - packed on the 18th - shelf life until August 2. Gotta think that would give them enough time to get some to your stores. What store chain(s) do you have available in Sioux Lookout?

Kind of shutting the barn door after the horse is gone with what has been said above!

The caramel is sitting on a piece of silicone and there are aluminum bars being used to contain it on 4 sides.

The sky just keeps getting more and more interesting after the rain this afternoon. We are really in a strange little microclimate here - you can see different weather on the other side of the channel frequently.

Tool?

I wish to try The Man Comes Around. Alas I have no mole bitters here with me up north. That is about to be rectified - I have a batch underway using the Serious Eats DIY version. It will be placed in the ultrasonic cleaner to take the place of the various aging periods - so I expect it to be done tomorrow.