Lex Culinaria

What I did on my Autumn Vacation: An Essay (of sorts)

Day One: rise early, press shirt and cute brown pants. Do hair nicely. Drive 3.5 hours to Jasper Park Lodge. Check in. Greet friends. Refresh. Intend to go into Jasper Town for dinner with friends, but end up drinking (a lot) in the Lodge lounge and eating hot wings and fries and playing pool in the bar. Go to bed really really late and really really drunk. But not drunk enough to sleep through the sound of the Elk rutting party happening outside the cabin window. From approximately 3 to 5 am. Vacation is clearly going downhill at a rate of knots.

Day Two: Rise somewhat later but still early. Intend to go for run around pristine glacier-fed lake. Go back to sleep while husband runs by himself. Travel into Jasper Town. Have not bad (but not memorable either) toasted breakfast sandwich at totally forgettable restaurant without table service. Bemoan fact that it is totally unreasonable for anyone to expect you to walk to the counter to order food this early in the morning. Have Nap. Manage to run around lake. Weakly. Nap. Get drunk some more. Eat dinner at some point not quite sure when though. Fall into bed. Play trivial pursuit in lounge and drink. Play with Sheep puppet that Jen bought. Jen loves Sheep. Did I mention we were drunk?

Day Three: Eat much better breakfast at Papa Georges. Vow to only eat breakfast there when in Jasper. Order and devour the Papa George's Skillet which is a mound of the second best (v. high praise) hash browns I've ever had in my life topped with spinach and tomato and feta scrambled eggs. Yum. Have nap. Drink some more.  Have busy day inventing and playing River Bowling which involves chucking large river stones onto vast expanses of ice formed atop the Athabasca river, without cracking the ice. Unless you are my husband in which case, the point of your game is to make as many holes and big splashes as possible. Have really good pizza for supper at Jasper Pizza. Irritate the other patrons by hogging the video jukebox and ordering 20 bad selections, the highlights of which were Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" (note: WH can't, in fact, dance) and Hall and Oates "Secret Agent Man", which, Wow. Drink a lot more. But not enough to sleep through sound of 4 million Japanese tourists in next room having karaoke party in next room starting at 5:30 am.

Day Four: Stumble out of bed. Think about running around lake. Don't. Have breakfast at Papa Georges again and have the best tasting vanilla bean black tea ever made. Exclaim numerous times how good this tea is. Make all your dining companions taste it. Buy 8 boxes of cute Canadian Smarties that say, right on the box, "Eat the red ones last, Eh!" Think that they are so very cute, every one you know would like to have a box for Christmas. Photograph some sheep. Drive 5.5 hours to Kamloops. Stop for supper at really great Greek place (name escapes me). Fantastic calamari and dolmades. And possibly the best lemon potatoes ever. Wonder quietly if the lady at the next table who keeps asking for more and more flat-bread is stoned and experiencing the munchies. Until you try it and find out that she probably is stoned because they are clearly laced with crack. When inexperienced waitress is clearing tables and forgetfully places (virtually) untouched basket at empty table next to us, claim it as our own. Drive 4.5 hours to North Vancouver. Take amazing mountain sunset photos. Eat box of Smarties. Sleep. No drinking.

Day Five: Board 7:30 ferry to Departure Bay. Wait. Wait. Arrive Nanaimo. Give husband 20 minute tour and drive to Victoria. Wander around downtown. Have spectacular lunch at the Wharfside restaurant. Waiter is attentive and hilarious. Cake's mushroom thyme soup is incredible. Goats cheese and sun-dried tomato flat-bread is great. Buy totally unnecessary room sprays and candles. Make mistake of going into Roger's Chocolates. Have to be revived by paramedics as have collapsed in  dead faint after being flattened by yummy chocolaty smell after opening the door. Buy chocolates. Eat chocolates. Eat box of Smarties. Check into the most gorgeous B&B in Victoria. Take B&B lady's recommendation and go for dinner at Med Grill. Have Monday night 4 course menu. White bean soup is fantastic, as is Cake's candied pecan and pear salad. Mains are so-so but grapefruit panna cotta is unbelievable. Contemplate licking bowl.

Day Five: Contemplate running. Don't. Breakfast (vegetarian fritatta, granola, yogurt, fruit) is lovely. Visit Butchart Gardens. Take a billion photos (check out the photo album in the left column!) because it is the most beautiful (and enormous) garden ever. Marvel that it used to be a private property. Have great lunch at Martin's Place: rotini with white wine sauce and seafood. Nap. Go out for supper. Have seafood platter for supper at Blue Crab. Discover that, aside from the decor, it's overrated. Just another seafood platter. Buy more Roger's Chocolates.

Day Six: Contemplate running. Don't. Sylvia's lemon ricotta pancakes are like little souffles on your plate. Gorgeous. She has promised the recipe. View Craig Darroch castle. Depart Victoria. Stop for lunch at the Malahat Mountain Inn, which has stunning views of the mountains and water and which also does a mean burger. Drive to Crofton. Miss Ferry to Saltspring Island by 2 minutes. Curse. Eat box of Smarties. Have coffee and cookie in cute little cafe. Catch next ferry. Check into "Salt Spring Island Spa Resort" which is neither spa nor resort. What it actually is, is a collection of dated, log cabins with stained carpet and tacky red 1980's jacuzzi tubs with brass fittings. Hope for the best. Go for a run. Stop when arrive at big, big hill. Turn around, run the other way. Arrive at second unreasonably big hill. Give up. Have supper at the Oystercatcher. Cute restaurant, great grilled oyster skewers. Recall having pressed cute brown pants. Can't decide whether the wrinkled smelly ball of brown in bottom of suitcase is same pants as left home with.

Day Seven: Another run! Yay. The Salt Spring Island Not Spa Nor Resort has buggered up our spa bookings. I asked for 11 am. They were supposed to call if that wasn't going to work. Spa people get all huffy when I explain that one treatment at 12:15 and one at 3:45 isn't going to work. We end up meeting in the middle. Curious lack of diplomas or certificates on the wall. Leave with impression that the therapist considers smoking a lot of pot in the 80's was sufficient training. Waste of money! Travel to Salt Spring Island Cheesery for cheese. Look at cute goats and cuter ponies. Sample all sorts of cheese, and olives too. Buy cheese with intention of never sharing it. Miss closing time for lavender farm by 5 minutes. Bugger. Stop off at fish market for fresh caught halibut and clams. And butter, and garlic and lemon. Have green salad and fresh corn and barbecued fish and clams drenched in lemony garlic butter. Die happy.  Have spa bath in salt spring-fed spa.

Day Eight: Get up early and get going to the ferry. Stop for lunch at very strange coffee shop in Fulford Harbour. Building looks like a giant plaster tumour has taken it over. Must be the product of crazy stoned hippy stuccoers. Wish I had a photo. Sandwich was the best ever (it better be at $8.95!): toasted organic sourdough bread, slices of smoked tofu, goats cheese, other cheese, lettuce, pesto. Amazing. Catch ferry back to Vancouver Island (note: next time, hold it until the other side, as portaloo at ferry terminal is foul beyond words!) Drive through Nanaimo to Coombs to market. Remember why I love the Cooms Old Country market so much. Cakes loves the goats living on the sod roof, I love the dry goods and amazing bakery and restaurant and the Mexican vanilla which seems much more expensive that it was 7 years ago, but I did buy the full litre bottle this time!  Have seafood in cheese sauce over English muffins. Hear arteries clanging shut. Drive to Little Qualicum Falls and Cathedral Grove to get fill of 800-year old trees and beautiful waterfalls. Feel depressed that government has allowed Cathedral Grove (old growth forest park) to be renamed Macmillan (as in Macmillan Bloedel) Park. Grrrrrrr. Check in to guesthouse run by Australians. Is really cute, but am reminded that backpacking days are over for me. Bus terminal right below window. Loud night-owlish Dutch backpackers in next room. Have to share toilet. Miss kittens terribly so swear to get up early and depart. Sick of hotels. Sick of restaurant food. Did I just say that? Nah.... Must have been mistaken. Eat box of Smarties.

Day Nine: Get up stupidly early. Catch 8:30 ferry. Drive 13 hours home. Hug kittens a lot. Eat box of Smarties.

Day Ten: Wake up in own bed. Eat box of Smarties. Then eat the last one too, eh.

I think I'm Going to be Sick

Is what I imagine the little guy on the bottom is thinking.

Okay, so the barfing jackolantern is not terribly original, but it is cute!

We really are huge dorks when it comes to decorating our house for halloween. It's amazing what you can do with a crock pot and some dry ice.

Happy halloween, y'all. We'll be on the couch, eating toasted pumpkin seeds and waiting for the kiddies to please, please, please come take our candy! I had, for supper tonight, 3 packets Sour Cherry Blasters, 3 mini Crunchies, 4 mini Caramilks, and 2 packets Swedish Berries. I think I redeemed myself with the toasted pumpkin seeds though. They're full of good vitamins and oils.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds (these are totally addictive)

3 cups fresh pumpkin seeds cleaned and washed (about 2 medium or one large pumpkins' worth)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon finely crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
spray oil

spread seeds out on a teflon baking sheet. Combine spices and salt and sprinkle over rinsed seeds. Spray lightly with cooking oil. Bake in a 250F oven for one hour. or until dry and toasted.

Vacaaaayshun!

Vacation is certainly a good reason to switch jobs if you're a lawyer. It's about the only time you get to take more than a week off at once and definately the only time you can leave the office knowing there will be no phone calls while on the beach and nothing scary lurking on your desk when you come back.

So, Cakes and I are off in the morning for 11 days of rest and recreation before I start my new job.

First we're meeting up with a great mate of mine from Uni who lives in Minneapolis with her husband at the Jasper Park Lodge (the photo at the top of this post is from the last time we were there)- which is a fantastic place to holiday! It's at the JPL that I fell in love with Apple Fizzes. After Jen and Chris leave JPL to return to Minneapolis, Cakes and I will drive from Jasper to Kamloops, and then on to Vancouver Island. We're staying in a great little B&B in Victoria for a few nights and then we're off to Salt Spring Island Spa and Resort for some serious clam digging, organic eating, hiking, facials and massages, before hitting my old stomping grounds around Nanaimo, including the Coombs market, complete with sod roof-dwelling goats. It was at Coombs market that I found huge bottles of pure, beautiful mexican vanilla for like $7 per 500 ml! I have extremely fond memories of the deli there.

We're both looking forward to this trip very much, not least because vancouver Island is a hotbed of great organic food - local cheeses, wines and other great comestibles are everywhere. I imagine that without too much trouble I could undo all the good that's been done by soldiers of fitness over the last few months. Plus we're driving so there is no limit to the stuff I can bring back with me!

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Unemployed girl cooks wild mushroom ragout

I am currently unemployed. For three glorious weeks (until I become employed again), I can get up when I want and do whatever strikes my fancy. Funny how when you cross that line into "grown up", "whatever strikes your fancy" rarely means "lie in bed all day eating jelly beans". Rather it means "get the laundry done on time for once, mend that pair of pants that have been sitting, torn, in the bottom of the closet for 3 years, and sort out all the crud at the bottom of the kitchen junk drawer into neat containers".

All that is totally okay because I got to make my own lunch today. Instead of grabbing takeaway, or reheating last night's left overs in the microwave and eating at my desk, I made an actual hot meal from scratch. And because Cakes works at home, he got actual hot lunch too.

Because last week was my final week at Law Firm #1, I got taken out a few times by lovely people for lovely lunches. At one of these lovely lunches I was taken to Normand's (fantastic menu by the way, and very reasonable for what you get) I and the woman I was with had both chosen our meals when we spotted the "mushrooms on toast" and decided, even though it was a main course, we would order one as an entree and split it to try. I commented that I couldn't see just creamed mushrooms on toast as a meal by itself. I was wrong! It was so terribly good, that I immediately regretted not ordering it (although, what I did get was lovely!). I thought to myself that One day, I'd come back and boldly order the mushrooms on toast for lunch and nothing else. Except maybe a glass of wine. Then I forgot about them.

Until today.

I was peering out the window at the grey and drizzly morning, pondering what to make for lunch today, when it struck me that creamed mushrooms on toast would be an ideal warm lunch on such a dreary day. It's warm and filling without being to heavy or creamy. Perfect for a light winter lunch. With a glass of wine and an adorable husband.

You do need a good thick bread to soak up all the creamy gravy. I bet it would also be lovely with the hot topping served in a fondue pot with baguette rounds and parfait spoons as a first course for a 4 or 6 person dinner party. Sort of a cross between a hotpot and a fondue.

(serves 4)

• 1/2 sliced onion
• 2 large cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon ground sage
• 1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper
• 6 cups mixed sliced mushrooms (cremini, oyster, shitake)
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 + 1/4 cup white wine
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 cup grated good quality Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/3 cup cream

• fresh, crusty bread cut in very thick slices and toasted

In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, cook and stir the butter, onions, garlic and sage for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the mushrooms and pepper and continue cooking until the mushrooms start to cook down and get a bit brown.  Add the soy sauce. Shake up the flour with the wine and pour into the pan. Stir until sauce starts to bubble and thicken. Add parsley and Parmesan cheese (reserving a little cheese top sprinkle over the top of the plated servings), cook and stir 2 minutes more. Remove from heat, stir in milk and cream.

Serve the ragout hot atop fresh toasted bread and sprinkle with a little additional cheese.

Purple potatoes, ham and pastry that was never meant to be eaten

I recall one Thanksgiving dinner, when I was sixteen, trying to explain to my Mennonite German grandmother that I had recently become vegetarian and therefore would not in fact be eating the turkey. No. I wouldn't be eating the stuffing either because (besides the fact that I have always harboured an irrational hatred for stuffing) it was actually cooked inside the turkey. And no, I would not be having the gravy on my potatoes (sob!). I recall it was like a scene straight out of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "What? You no eat meat? That's okay. I make Lamb." Or even ham. Or maybe chicken.

Once she cottoned on to the fact that yes I would still eat potatoes and perogies and that vast quantities of sour cream were a-OK, she was somewhat less uncomfortable. In her books no meat = weird.

Well, I'm certainly not vegetarian any more so there's no freaking Gram out on that count. This year I did what I thought was the next best thing.

Gram has always been an earnest supporter of things her grandchildren make or do or grow all by themselves, so she was forced to eat my unorthodox (or unMennonite, depending on your perspective) contribution to this year's Thanksgiving dinner: ham cooked in coke and mashed purple potatoes that I grew my own damn self in my own sad garden. I call it a sad garden because its only yield this year, besides an unMennonite amount of weeds, was: 42 pea pods, 4 ripe tomatoes, 65,325 unripe tomatoes, 8 (small) zucchinis (some with pre-rotted ends), 3 tiny patty pan squashes, 40 leeks as big around as a thin HB pencil (which is to say not big at all) and 12 HUGE potato bushes (plants? trees? vines?) each bearing, at most, 4 small potatoes totalling no more than a few hundred grams per bush.

Judging by the size of the bushes (4 feet tall!) I was foolishly expecting tonnes of potatoes. I even smugly mentioned to my husband that we ought to be prepared to give the extra away to the Edmonton Gleaner's Association. Ha. My total purple potato output weighed in shy of 3 pounds.

I peered into my little wooden potato box daily to see if somehow they'd grown or multiplied in the night, but alas, they just sat there tinily, mocking my premature potato growing hubris. In order to redeem myself, I offered them up for our family Thanksgiving dinner along with the heathen ham.

Gram didn't even blink at the prospect of heathen coke-ham and purple potatoes. She asked for extra ham. Because one of her grandchildren made it. She is such a sweetheart. I suspect though, that my purple potatoes and unMennonite coke-ham were not shocking to her because, unlike the announcement about the vegetarianism, this revelation was not in fact accompanied by black lipstick, army boots, half a shaved head and a cultivated scowl.

Although I was denied the amusement of confounding my grandmother with unMennonite food, I had the pleasure of watching Cakes (which is Swedish for "will eat any sort of raw dough, even puff pastry dough, compulsively") gobble down a rather largish chunk of homemade play-dough (1 cup flour, 1/3 cup salt, 1/4 cup water) I had made to prop up some taper candles in the candle holders I'd made out of mini pumpkins. Hee.

Once you get past the colour (which would be lovely for Easter) the purple potatoes make really good mash!

PS Does anyone know what to do with 12 kilos of green tomatoes?