Darienne

Thanks, rebgold. I was really looking forward to growing Mexican ingredients, but I think more for the joy of the growing than the usefulness of the eating. Because I am not a gardener, I didn't think about it soon enough and the peppers are out for this year. It still leaves me the tomatillos and the Mexican oregano, both of which I can buy as plants (the lady bristled noticeably when I called them seedlings but I don't know why) and the epazote which I can do indoors. I have to phone back and see when Richters gets them in and then think about replanting them. June 1st is the usual date in this region for frost being over.

I cant believe you cant find it where you live. We had it in Exeter( pop 4400). Although, they called it Corriander( on the reciept). That bugged me because thats the seed, not the leaf. When I lived in Exeter, I could even get jicama too. Sorry if my post was not clear. It was not carried in one store Ed went into...they were out in another. However, he didn't ask for coriander, that's true. I know they don't carry it in our local grocery store, but then they don't carry eggplant either. Furthermore, Peterborough is quite an insular, non-mosaic small city with very few minorities, other than Asian and Trent University students. It's just the way it is. I have seen Jicama at the one store downtown which tends to cater to the various minority groups in the city, but not every time. Nor cassava. We do have two Asian markets...or maybe three. We can get just about everything Asian for cooking. One major Mexican restaurant, a popular chain elsewhere in Ontario,with the best location in the entire city folded up about a year ago. Another small independent one opened several months ago and I spoke to the owner recently and it's not doing well. I asked why he has no pork on the menu: folks here won't eat it in Mexican food. Etc. I might add that he has a thriving restuarant in Port Perry which is 9,500 compared to Peterpatch at about 70,000. Etc.

Cutlery in our home.

Breathtaking photo. We've never been to Oregon, so as an ignorant Canuck I would have guessed Ecuador or somewhere like that.

Not so simple I found. We have hundreds of tall spruce trees and most of them have immature cones on them right now. Maybe they have tips up at the top...not near the bottom. However, I did find a number of small spruce trees at the edge of the forest, about 3 - 4 feet tall and they had the little tips referred to in the recipe. Next step to remove the paper tips and clean them (we live on a very, very dirty dirt road and these trees get a waft of blowing dirt with the passing of each car.) I ate one. Oh...I don't know. It was very...tangy? I'm up for the ice cream experiment anyway!

Just found your post and am, as the British would say, gob-smacked. Followed it up on Google and found Spruce Tips Ice Cream. As an enthusiastic ice cream maker, I've got to try this. We have at least 15 acres of reforested spruce on our farm. Who knew? Thanks so much for starting this topic. This is were I found it. Spruce Tips Recipes

Bravo and let me in on it too. I am still wavering on the edges of it all wondering how on earth to do this thing once and for all.

They do sell to individuals with 'freight charges' which I did not inquire about. Never heard of them before. Thanks.

Hi Jaymes, How I wish you were correct about the possibility that the fast food thing was a treat. Nope, we were there a few years in a row and this was not summer but October/November. And I am not in the least suggesting banning Taco Bell. We have eaten more than our share of "Fiesta Salads" while on the road. Try to pick up stuff at grocery stores...but sometimes the spirit is simply too tired. It's a four day drive and that's a lot more than 4 times a one day drive as you may imagine. Subway is our latest go to for lunch. We have a public school system in Canada too but what healthful stuff did you ever learn in school? What they taught was government mandated...Canada's Food Rules here. I'd no more live by them than eat at Taco Bell everyday. Plus school teaching is not too conducive to real education a lot of the time. Let the school system try to teach you something and it's like a death sentence to learning for many teenagers. These Moms (and there's plenty of them who are not systemically "undereducated") are often chronically exhausted and at the bottom of the financial (and power) heap. I have no solutions...and this is not my place to do so, had I any. When we walk the dogs at night, even late, and see all the kids still up and the little girls wearing plastic wedge shoes, etc...my heart aches. (But then I am old and everyone knows the elderly get crabby. , yadda, yadda)

The convenience angle is huge. We used to stay at the same motel in Moab every year and got to know the house staff fairly well. At lunch two of the housekeepers' young children were brought to lunch at the motel ramada by one young woman...probably a 'sitter' of some sort...with Taco Bell stuff or McDonald's or whatever. These women were undereducated, single Mothers, poor, overworked, underpaid, harried...you name it. Their children had a life which I would not have willingly given to mine. Lauding this motel, I'll add that it was one of the only ones in Moab which provided benefits. We, on the other hand, could afford to travel, stay at a motel and we ate at the ramada also. Our lunch was a nutritious salad which I prepared from scratch with homemade dressing in the motel kitchenette. I had all of what they were missing. And I had not worked all the time my own children were growing up. I didn't have to. What a difference in our lives. How lucky we were and still are. No wonder those Moms didn't know how to shop properly and relied on fast food joints to feed their kids. BTW, I don't 'know' the USDA food pyramid, but I sure as heck don't think too much of the Canadian one. It has sold out to the food industry pressures.

While the Champion is not fun to clean, I don't find it all that difficult. Many kitchen appliances are not 'fun' to clean...food processors are my special dislike. Asked the DH about putting sugar cane stalk through and he replied that he had never tried but didn't think it was a very good idea. The Champion is tough...but he suspects that the cane is tougher. But, that's just based on conjecture as noted.

But a fascinating experiment which we are all following...

Had to add this maple syrup link to Inutik. Fascinating. In the Spring 2011 edition of the Food and Drink magazine (which must cost incredible amounts of money to publish and give away free) published by the Ontario Liquor Board, which as you know charges also incredible amounts of money (much of it taxes of one kind or other) for Ontario-sold booze.

LOL. I am interested in the final disposition of the vodka.

Thanks for the report Brian. Besides Poblanos, Richter's carries seed for Anaheim, Pasilla (the dried name, De Arbol, so we are out quite a bit. I will go to Richter's (Goodwood) as soon as the time is right and get tomatillos and Mexican oregano. They also have a book on growing and using chile peppers for $12...which as I recall I could not find on Amazon.com or ca...so I'll take a look at it. Chile Peppers Beth Harman. Don't want to grow the little hotties. You can buy them all year long everywhere. Thanks again.

Do you live within 200 miles of me? Will you teach me the tricks? LOL. They are beautiful.

Dear Husband

Whereas I, on the other hand, while allowed to load the dishwasher piecemeal, am overruled by the DH who is the only one who can load it correctly. And I don't know who Larry David is.

My go-to favorite snack cracker I first tasted as one of those promotional giveaways in our local Costco; Mary's Organic Crackers, Original only please. Delicious. :wub: DH's favorite is Wheat Thins, original only also.

My Mexican garden seems to have shrunk now to the plants which I can purchase at Richter's in a couple of weeks: tomatillos and Mexican oregano. No nursery in this area carries any Mexican chile peppers except for Jalapenos which you can buy any time of the year in any grocery store. If it can be worked in, we'll go to the Humber nursery in Brampton. Thanks for all the help. oh...if Epazote is an herb, could I not grow it indoors anyway???

It's not Canadian customs you register it with - it's american. They will (or should) make up a little green card with the info on it that serves to prove you own it when you are taking it back. Proof of purchase would serve the same purpose. Canadian customs will only be interested in whether you are selling it to a Canadian while you are here. Not sure how you prove that. I can tell you how we do it every year...and we've done it dozens of times...from the Canadian perspective. In our city, Peterborough, we have a Canadian customs outlet and we take the item, in this case your Little Dipper, down there and they issue us with the little green card to prove when we return that we already had it with us. Or, as Kerry says, you can do it at our border. Now, because it is against US law that 'aliens' do any work for remuneration in the US, we also have to prove that we are not working for money in the USA. Which of course, we can't. You can't prove absence of intention. And what we take with us is our gourd tools. So what I do is to print out whatever workshop information I have from online and have this handy. 'Are you intending to work in the USA?' they might ask. 'No, we reply. We are going to this workshop...(shows printed workshop papers)...and that's all.' It's been a long time since we have been challenged ...although we were once and it was not pleasant...and I am always prepared since that time. [Added note: yes, no American official has challenged us since that one horrible episode more than a decade ago.] I hope this helps. If you want any other tidbits of the same kind, just PM me. All best. Yes, I am devastated that once more I've been forced to cancel attending an eG event, but as my youngest is wont to say: Stuff happens. Well, of course, he doesn't say 'stuff'.

DH says they carry cilantro in one of the stores...they were just out. Our Asian markets do not carry Mexican type peppers, just Asian vegetables. I've not even seen any fresh Oriental peppers.

Perola's and a couple of other places whose names I cannot recall, on Augusta, in Kensington Market. Mexican outlets in Toronto a good start.

We lived in Panama for a number of years, and cilantro grew wild everywhere, most certainly including our yard. I figured I'd have no trouble growing it in Central Texas and I planted some when we lived in Austin. But Central Texas in the summer is much hotter than it ever gets in Panama, so none of my cilantro made it through. It all burned up in the heat. I gave up on growing it after that first year. For one thing, it's so easy to find. Obviously, Texas has a huge Mexican influence so our mainstream grocers carry it, but it's also very popular in several Asian cuisines. If you can't find it in Mexican markets up there, you might give Asian markets a try. So Ed tried two grocery chains this morning and neither had cilantro.

Thanks for the encouragement, but we don't have Lowes...yet...and only a very few nurseries...like Richters...would even carry these kinds of plants. We simply don't have a very big Latin population in these h'ar parts.