Summer 2012: Pirate Invasion!

This is my sister-in-law Cheri.

These are the types of cakes Cheri dreams up and creates.

A pirate ship arriving from a water land of cupcakes to a desert land of 'sand' cupcakes on which the pirates will fight with the skeleton crew who have a treasure.  Yep.  She makes the fabulous creations and then we, her grateful family-in-law, have the audacity to eat them.  Truly they should be encased on glass and put on display in a museum.  Instead, we eat them.  We (un)grateful lot.

The pirate ship is made from rice-crispie treats wrapped in moulded tootsie roll.  The masts are cookies.  

The water and sand are cupcakes with delicious icing and candies on them.  The desert has icing which is them dipped on pulverized graham crackers.  So yummy!

In addition to the cake she made cross-bone cookies...because they are so simple to create (?).

The skeletons guarding their treasure

'Come get us and our treasure pirates!'

The pirates descend in a ship to advance towards the booty.

Prepared to fight!

Who will win?!?

This summer I confessed to Cheri that I have a fantastic business idea.  She is going to make cakes like these and I am going to sell them.  Thusly she and my brother must stay together always, and she needs to make cakes faster...or we can hire minions to create the cakes while she dreams them up.  Either way my plan will take some convincing and she just laughed every time I mentioned our new joint venture.  There is some work and convincing yet to be done.  Wish us luck with our booty!

Summer 2012: Pig Roast

It happened again this year.  The Richard and Miranda pig roast.  This does not mean we roasted Richard, Miranda and a pig, this means that Richard and Miranda bought a pig and roasted it for some added summer fun, which has been occurring for 4-5 years now.

Usually the roast occurs around the August long weekend and I was one of the lucky many who watched, visited, partook and played at this years roast.  First, my sister Zoe and I went over for a peek earlier in the morning to see how the pig was being roasted.

Glen and Jeremy visited at the same time. 

Richard explained to Zoe and I that he uses the slow cook method during which the pig is roasted over 7-8 hours but with only 1 or 2 smaller pieces of cedar added to the fire slowly over time.  Either way I am glad he cooks the pig.  A quick visit was enough for me as I have a woozy stomach.  I eat meat but I really don't like watching the raw version in full form being cooked.  Hypocrite I know.

Time to carve the pig.  Once again, Richard and Miranda have a butcher friend complete this part.  Phew!  Glad each cousin doesn't have to take a turn each year or I would be carving a tofu pig in 2018 for the family.  :)

Bonjour Monsieur Pig

The pig. His cooker. His carver.

Senya and Wyona posing with some food

At about 12 pm it was time to begin gathering all the food that had been slaved over during the course of the day.  Our family property now has 5 cabins full of family members in them.  Each house was asked to bring two salads.  When you consider that in the Bates cabin alone there are 25 people and there are just as many people in each of the other cabins, that is a lot of people and a large amount of food.  The picture above is merely one of three large tables full of food on which we dined.  

Thomas trying out the fresh apple juice Uncle David made

I can not tell you the deliciousness of Arta's freshly baked bread.  I stood for a while trying to capture the texture, the flavour, the smell, and the bouncy-ness of her bread.  This picture is not bad but I shall have to try again next summer.  Fresh bread, one of the delights of each meal.

About To Make Brownies

While I was living in Calgary in the early 2000's I purchased a book by a Calgary based recipe author, Julie Van Rosendaal.  Having a very sweet tooth, I immediately loved it as it is called, One Smart Cookie: All your favourite cookies, squares, brownies and biscotti...with less fat!  A few years later I bought her Grazing recipe book too.  Over the years I have made several dishes out of both books, granted the sugar content is not super low in the cookie book, but the results are delicious and you can scrumptiously indulge with a little less guilt.

After having curled today, completed some errands, and accidentally did some laps around a near-by mall who has taken down all its directional signs (I almost didn't make it out), it is time for a treat.  There is zucchini in the fridge from my aunt and uncle's garden in British Columbia (it had a long drive out to Winnipeg) and I shall be making Julie's Chocolate Chip Zucchini Brownies (p. 134).  Since I fly solo, I will eat to my heart's content, then divide up the pan of brownies into healthy size portions, wrap them up in plastic, and freeze them for when I have a chocolate hankering another day.

Can't promise any photos.  Do you really want to see chocolate and zuch in my teeth?  I didn't think so.  But here is Julie's more recent blog which appears to have developed beyond desserts.  Mmmmmmm.....

  DINNER WITH JULIE  

I changed my mind.
I took picture.
Warm. Dense. Chocolatey. Decadent.

Confessions of a French Baker

Confessions of a French Baker: Breadmaking Secrets, Tips, and Recipes by Peter Mayle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For this read I going to my local (not French but as best as I can do in Winnipeg) baker to get some bread I can munch on while reading.  I love baking, I just have not baked a lot of bread.  More of a cookie, muffin, squares baker am I.

The introduction is a quick read and several of the recipes look delicious but I am in grad school in the heat of Manitoba.  To cook or to graduate?  Yep, another day, another time in my life I will have a home that smells of a French bakery.  For now, I shall return the book and head to the local french bakery to be a patisserie snob (I lived in Belgium as a pre-teen, I know my pastries).

Let me know of you try baking any of these delicious looking morsels and how it turned out.


View all my reviews

French Lessons: Adventures with knife, fork, and corkscrew

French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew by Peter Mayle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A wonderful light read by Peter Mayle who again entertains the reader with the festivals and holidays that he visits all over France.  From eating contests, to a running marathon with wine tastings along the route, to upper class semi-nude lunches, to the muddy and calming spa, Mayle's writing will put a spontaneous smile on your face, cause you to roll your eyes in disbelief, and generally love France and its inhabitants just a little bit more.  He also explains the Michelin Food Guide (yes, of the large rubber tires) that started in the 1920's rating restaurants and their food, services and ambience bestowing stars on the deserving.  Now a controversial publication in some culinary circles, many people still reach for it to peruse as the head to France for some travels, and Mayle takes the time to explain what this book means to the country and to its foodie citizens.

Give it a read and enjoy a writer who is able to present the quirks of a culture that loves many things and appears to celebrate them all.

View all my reviews

Oranges for Dessert

Many years ago when I was naive, lacked understanding and knowledge of the amount of work required to complete certain types of work, I had just finished eating a meal at my Aunt Arta and Uncle Kelvin's house.  Arta does not just serve a meal, she coordinates a feast.  Be in Indian food, turkey dinner, a concoction of salads (couscous, greens, etc), or other assortments of themed delights, she is a host of the culinary arts.  At the end of dinner I asked where dessert was (re-read post's first sentence now).  Arta looked at me and said there was none.  I laughed then said of course there was dessert, there was always dessert.  Arta stood up, walked to her fridge, moved her body about, then returned to the table and plunked an unpeeled orange down in front of every person at the table.  I laughed again (re-read first sentence of post again).  I asked her a second time where the REAL dessert was.  She laughed and told me that the orange was dessert, sat down, began to peel her orange.  I remember being confused because at my house growing up we always had dessert and here, in this house, there was none?  How odd.

Over the years, as I have matured, I have come to know that my mother is a baker of delightful goodies and others are cookers of delightful savoury things (caveat: my mother can cook sweet and savoury in all its delights, but she shines while desserting).  Not everyone eats dessert.  Arta is not a dessert person.  I am.  Many jokes and teasings have been made over the years by both of us about dessert, oranges and the like.

Fast-forward to 2012 as I read for my thesis.  I am working within a framework called Serious Leisure Perspective, a series of concepts developed over 40 years by a University of Calgary based sociologist, Robert Stebbins (or as my recent quantitative sociology statistics professor put it this last term, "Old Bobby Stebbins?!  He is a well-known leisure researcher?!?  Really?!?"  Yep, very much so).  Reams and reams of researchers have built on his work about serious leisure and in the 2010's more is being completed.

As I am reading one of his many books titled, Serious Leisure: A Perspective For Our Time, I come across this as a book summary:

"Let us think, for a moment, of the serious leisure perspective as resembling a serving of Bananas Foster.  Serious Leisure [the banana] is the central ingredient in this confection, which however, is greatly enhanced with the complementary ingredients of rum, salt butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, banana liqueur, and vanilla ice cream...All this prepared to perfection in a flambé pan, where the rum serves as fuel for the fire that cooks the bananas, themselves bathed, as they are, in a sauce prepared from the aforementioned ingredients.  In metaphor or in real life, the bananas alone (serious leisure) are insufficient to constitute this dessert.  Rather it needs for its completion and perfection the other ingredients...for an optimal leisure lifestyle.  Such a lifestyle is Bananas Foster, exquisitely prepared.  Serious leisure is enhanced and blended with judicious amounts of appealing [forms of] leisure...Bananas Foster, sans bananas, is just not Bananas Foster.  Every New Orleanian knows that."

As I taunt my Aunt Arta once again about oranges for dessert sans toppings, perhaps I have not grown up that much at all.  Then again, next time we are in the same city perhaps we shall share in the making of Bananas Foster, a New Orleanian dessert I have never tried.

Bananas Foster care of Joy of Desserts and More! blog:

Picture and recipe from Joy of Desserts and More! blog

Bananas Foster   
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
8 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced lengthwise
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup banana liqueur
9 ounces dark rum

She melted the butter in a skillet, (you could also use a chafing dish), then added the brown sugar. Stir until it melts. Then in went the bananas to saute for about 3 minutes on each side. She sprinkled cinnamon and poured the alcohol over the bananas. Once the alcohol is warm (you can't light cold alcohol), carefully light it with a match or lighter. Gently tilt the flaming sauce to baste the bananas until the flames die out when all the alcohol has burned off. Serve hot immediately, over ice cream.

Lobster, Grand Beach, Frozen Lake Winnipeg

The 39 New Things I am doing this year continues: 

My friend Christa's brother, Randy, came into town and the next thing I know they have planned a clambake on Grand Beach, one of the first places I was told to visit when I moved to Manitoba.  OK, maybe not a clambake, but not having every lived near an ocean since childhood, I can only make reference to the 1945 Rogers & Hammerstein musical, Carousel and the song "A Real Nice Clambake".  I sang this song on stage with the rest of the junior high and high school cast at the International School of Brussels in the mid-1980's.  Here I was years later going to my first real clam/lobster/mussel bake!

Listen to the song while you read:
This Was a Real Nice Clambake
by Rodgers and Hammerstein

Press play and keep reading!!!

The tricky part being the gag reflex that my body experiences when I try to eat seafood.  Then again, I reminded myself that I am trying new things and these two Nova Scotia native friends promised delightful lobsters, fresh from the coast, over an open fire on a beach.  Sounded like a fantabulous end to a long semester to me!  The trick was they only had three lobsters and I was an added forth.  A quick stop off at a local grocery store to pick up a fresh east-coast lobster solved that problem.  In a portable box, on the way out of the store I named him/her Blaire, after the young man questioning our lobster and 'smore-like purchases when spring had not yet arrived in the province.

Blaire in a box.

The ride out was longer than my other friend, Stephanie, and I expected but we arrived, lugged our assorted accoutrements around the 'do not cross' tape, after hitting my tall head on two 'be careful, do not enter' signs, we finally found the shore, friends and fire.  To my chagrin I shook my head and laughed at my strange country.  Is was the end of April, spring in many places in the world but Lake Winnipeg was still frozen over, with the shore only slightly showing signs of spring defrost.  Crazy cold country!

Lobsters cooking near a frozen Lake Winnipeg

I was elated when I found out not only were there lobsters a brewin', Christa and Randy had added garlic bread, corn, and mussels to the dinner menu.  With my intense knowledge of seafood and my clambake memories, I kept referring to the mussels as clams, but everyone kindly corrected me about 20 times over the course of the next 3 hours until I dropped 'clams' from my vocabulary.

The Feast!

These Nova Scotian's taught me how to cook, crack, dip, 

slurp, nibble and chew on lobster and I liked it!

The mussels (a.k.a. clams) were a little too fishy for me but I soldiered on.

Blair about the become dead and pink.

Randy stirring the mussel-clams ;)

We laughed, we cracked jokes, we stuffed our faces, 

we tried drying our synthetic wet socks on the fire....

Sock on marshmallow stick

Why I Love My Family

A message I received from my Aunt Arta who wanted to let me know what preparations my sisters were having in honour of my birthday tomorrow.  This makes me smile because I would have been thrilled with the treats if they would have sent them, but the smile in my face reading that my sisters and Aunt ate treats on my behalf, is just as big:

Hello Tonia,

I know tomorrow is your happy birthday, so ... one from me to me. 

Happy Birthday!

As well, it has been a lot of fun, watching the build-up here to your birthday.

I got to hear from Charise, all of her plans to make you cookies and send them in the mail.  I told her to make some cookies, put them in a box, bang the box around, then open it and see how many crumbs there were in the box.

The next thing I knew, she and Lurene were making Wyona’s caramel toffee square to send to you.

I think you would have got them, but the caramel in the middle was so running that when you cut it, it would run and they could see that wasn’t going to work.

When I was over there yesterday, we washed the pan that had the last of them in – none were wasted.  All were waisted.

What can I do, but report on the fun they were having.

The next thing I knew Charise had a card to put in the mail.  I offered to mail it on the way home, but she said, no, the mail box was close to her house and she would walk there and mail it.

I love it that you were so much the focal point of attention when your birthday was coming up, though you would probably not have known it.

Again, happy birthday.

Love,

Arta

Thanks for the thoughts ladies!  I love my family!

Need a New Calendar?

Several years ago while travelling through Rome my two friends and I spotted the most hilarious of calendars.  Catholic priests, completely dressed, but whose faces and body language suggested a layer of hotness.  We each bought one and years later they are still being used as specific dates are not attached to specific weekdays.  Smart calendar making!

Roman Priest Calendar
Not the best link but you can look for more in the inter-web.  ;)

Turns out there are new Mormon ones too.  Flanked in controversy, the creator Chad Hardy thought he would try to present a different, less stuffy image of Mormonism and asked male returned missionaries to pose shirtless.  This did not go down with the some general populace or the leaders.  He has begun to make a calendar of married women with baked goods.  Do we know where this is going?  Even less popular.  Either way, they look hilarious and quite tongue-in-cheek, which is why I don't mind them.  Not degrading or offensive, just sexy and a tad racy.  Give them a peek and order one if you have free space on a wall.

Men On A Mission and Hot Mormon Muffins Calendars

It Has Arrived

It is official.

At the age of 38 years old, 8 months, 13 days.

I found it.

In my bangs, on the right hand side.

MY FIRST GREY HAIR!

I have my dad's 'mousey brown hair' as my mother calls it.  Try to put it down but my dad had a head of  brown hair until he was in his 50's.  Any grey blended in and seemed invisible.  Now in his 60's, you have to get close and look hard to see the grey.  Years of hidden grey hairs ahead of me.

In honour of grey hair, I add pictures of the two women in my life that have demonstrated that dyeing one's hair is an option and a choice.  Thank you Wyona (my mother) and Arta (my aunt).

Let the grey hair go wild and beautiful! 

Wyona on the left, Arta on the right.  

Sisters having seen Sister Act in London's West End. 

Arta and I on Regent Street in London.

It was wonderful to finally see a woman with grey hair in an advertisement in such a public place.

(Please note that they did remove all the woman's wrinkles in the ad.  

Stills some work to do including many forms of beauty in the fashion industry.)

One Week in Heaven, Part III

Last year I took the opportunity to purchase a new Olympus Stylus Tough camera, which are both water and shock proof, with several models also freeze proof.  Each model is designed to be used in the water for a certain duration of time and at a specified depth (varying from 30 minutes to 45 minutes, and 3 feet to 16 feet deep).  My camera was acquired when a newer model as replacing the first model and I jumped at the chance of buying it for $160 rather than $300.  It is such a popular camera with my nieces and nephews that they regularly ask to use it while at our rocky beach during the summer.  They also discovered that under water movies are fun too.  Due to its outer strength, I am more than happy to share.  Here are the best pictures taken over other the last two summers.

Nephew under water.

Launch time!

Sommelier Francois Chartier

There are many reasons why I adore the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).  The employees are constantly keeping Canadians up to date and informed about our cities, provinces, country, continent and all the other people who inhabit this planet.  Some of my favourite shows are linked to this website in the right side bars.  They include: Tapestry, The Hour, As It Happens, Radio 1& 2 & 3, and C'est La Vie.  At times I find I am one of those people you may have seen in a concrete parking lot, sitting in a car staring ahead.  In reality I am listening, laughing, nodding in agreement, saying 'no way!', making other side comments, trying to listen to the end of program even though my destination has been reached.  I am merely holding on to the last point being made in the conversation or gleaning that pearl of knowledge from the presentation of new information.  CBC.  Love you!

On Sunday as I drove to work, I had another 'aha' moment and more personal research to pursue thanks to the CBC Radio One.  A man was talking about his research with taste buds and molecules.  What is the connection you may ask?  That is why I was stuck in a parking lot once I arrived at work!  Francois Chartier, is a delightful looking French-accented man, who loves to cook, has taken a 20 year scientific approach to the study of food, identifying the particles in particular foods that, when mixed with complimentary foods and their molecules, combine in our mouths to create the most delightful flavours imaginable.  This is the key to exquisite eating, the correct and most pleasing mixture of food and drink molecules.  So simple but a new a scientific and pleasure connection to me.  

(Book's front cover copied from Chartier's website.)

The original French version of his book, Papilles et Molecules, is available for those who want to brush up on their French skills.  The English version, Taste Buds and Molecules, is to be released in the Fall 2010.  The book promises to demonstrate how foods such as mint, curries, pineapple, beef, anise seed, bass, chardonnay, mango, etc can be combined to create delicious meals.  There are recipes that will make your mouth water upon them touching your tongue.  It also promises to help you to create your own mixture of delightful goodies as well.  Add to this a delightful wine that will encourage the further enjoyment of the molecules and you have repeated mouth watering experiences.  I shall have my taste buds ready!  You?  

Sommelier Francois Chartier (in English)

Globe and Mail Chemistry Eating

Review How Your Sense of Taste Functions

Molecular Basis of Taste (for all the science geeks out there.)

Christmas Cooking Video

He he!  Just in case you need more to do this Christmas, and you have not discovered the plethora of Christmas at Costco, here is some entertaining cooking for you.  It includes a visual on Christmas Pudding. 

Speaking of Christmas Pudding, I heard a comedian say once that there was really only ONE Christmas pudding/cake in the world.  A person or family receives it, offers a fake 'thank you', rolls their eyes in despair, and holds on to it for 364 days, then re-gifts it to you.  The next year, you do the same.  One Christmas cake, the entire Western planet.

Delia's Classic Christmas

Enjoy!