Author: carin

passing the cake…

~ carin ~ 1 Comment

 

I’m swanning about the place in a tiara today. Also a sash. Just missing a mitre—and, what, an ermine robe is asking too much??  All this thanks to Allyson Latta  who bestowed on me the most wonderful surprise of naming Matilda one of her picks for the (brace yourself) Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award—whose logo is a strawberry shortcake, which makes it probably the best award I’ve ever heard of.

The protocol, I’ve been advised, on receiving the ISBA, is to a) thank the person who nominated you, b) share seven things about yourself, and c) pass along the award to other irresistibly sweet bloggers.

Well, first things first then: thank you so very much, Ms. Allyson, for thinking of my little corner of cyberspace and for the kind things you said about it—the phrase “sometimes wacky” notwithstanding; surely a typo… :D  (me, wacky??)

As for sharing seven things about myself—this should be relatively simple given that there happen to be exactly seven things about myself.

They are these:

1.   My backyard is home to several giant ant hills (by which I mean three or four), none of which I intend to do anything about. One of them has been there fifteen years. We call it the Ant Hotel. When visiting kids were small we had a sign for it. Very reasonable rates and efficient, speedy room service (albeit small portions) were its hallmarks.

2.   I’ve been toying with the idea of trying to like coffee but I keep buying tea.

3.   Corn makes my stomach ache. Annoying because I like polenta and Mexican food and Fritos, not to mention buttery cobs on summer days, which when I was a kid I used to eat like a typewriter. (Link provided for those who just said a what??)

4.   My heroes tend to be animals, children and very old people.

5.   I’m happiest when the fridge is on the empty side. I find this inspires creativity in my cooking. Some wonderful things have been invented under the most spartan conditions. Or maybe I’m happiest when I’m outside, up to my wrists in dirt (pardon me, soil), or on a lounge chair in the company of words. On the other hand, swimming, plunging my nose into laundry fresh from a sunny line, a morning spent walking or writing at the beach…all leave me smiling pretty solidly too. As does rain and snow and the kind of breeze you could fall asleep in and then you do and that feeling when you wake up and the world is just there, waiting for you, making no demands. And you remember there’s just enough ice cream left for a small bowl and because there’s only a bit, it tastes that much better. And then you find a jar of cherries.

6.   I saw Leonard Cohen in concert in 2009. I still haven’t completely recovered.

7.   I would like to learn Spanish and Sign Language. Spanish, so that I can go back to Chile and discuss bread and wine and life. Sign Language for its beauty and elegance.

Finally, a few bloggers to whom I’d like to pass along the shortcake. Not for sweetness but for enhancing the interweb with their wise words, gentle spirits and contagious sense of joy.

Alone on a Boreal Stage—Home of poet and visual artist Brenda Schmidt’s photo/video poems and other bird/nature/book related pleasures.

We Drank Cachaca and Smoked the Green Cheroot—I’ve become addicted to this site because of stolen rhubarb, orange knickers, lady bikes, Jean Talon Market and sentences like this:

“I was not expecting the skies of England to be all painterly, to perform for me as they have apparently done since William and Dorothy Wordsworth pottered about the countryside with their pockets full of mutton pies, but the skies did perform, and I am still thinking about them, because they billowed alive over the built-up bricks and statuary and pomp and palaces that caused the subtitle BYGONE DAYS to float across my mind the whole time I was there.” (From the post: Whence and Whilst and Those Constable Skies, 6/14/11)

Pickle Me This—I’m always happily surprised whenever I check into this site. Kerry Clare has exactly the right mix of book smart and life whimsy.

Carol Bruneau’s Blog—This is where I go to remind myself how to think about writing.

Four Rooms—Exploring the power of words in various forms.

Island Editions—Publishing, books, beachy vistas and occasionally food.

 

j’aime la dent de lion beaucoup plus que stupide hermes

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Some people ask for an Hermes scarf when their chap goes to Paris. Me, I just wanted some good dandelion seed.
The chap did not disappoint!
Et voila!  The shady corner of the garden where pissenlit (translation: ‘wets the bed’—dandelion is a known diuretic so maybe best not to eat bucketsful before lights out) shares space with the domestic variety, as well as horseradish, nettles and returning tufts of raddicho. The naked bits are where seeds have been sown for a fresh Fall crop. (Think salad… with chopped egg, garlic and a warm grainy mustard/bacon vinaigrette.)

Try doing that with a scarf.

deductions of an amateur naturalist

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

I’ve noticed that bees like wisteria.

And cornflowers.
 Ajuga too, especially at dusk.
And lupins and iris.
All of which makes me think…
Bees like purpley blue stuff.

(although I have no photographic proof, not that I didn’t try—flighty buggers, bees—so don’t strain your eyeballs, there’s no buzzing in those blooms.)

book run

~ carin ~ 8 Comments

Given that I don’t shop at Amazon—and won’t darken a Chapters doorway other than for literary journals (I don’t even buy my candles or patio furniture there)—and given that I live in a medium sized town without a bookshop (ridiculous)—it’s a half hour drive north to pick up my order from the nearest bookseller (to a town much smaller but obvioulsy more bookish than mine) and another fifteen minutes to the second nearest. Not complaining; they’re worth the drive. Plus, there are such very merry things I can do on the way. For instance—

—I can stock up on the best buttertarts in the world from an amazingly innovative farm market-slash-golf-course-slash-outdoor patio-slash-apparent bridal photo hot spot-slash-tobaggoning run in the middle of nowhwere (as well as fresh-from-the-field veggies and fruit, happy meat and over-the-moon eggs).

—Go canoeing or, better yet, watch other people go canoeing while I have lunch

—Commune with emus

For starters.

That said, here’s the most recent haul (picture of  buttertarts not taken fast enough):

Cantos from Wolverine Creek, by Brenda Schmidt

Mennonites Don’t Dance, By Darcie Friesen Hossack

Is, by Anne Simpson

Finding the Words: Writers on Inspiration, Desire, War, Celebrity, Exile, and Breaking the Rules, edited by Jared Bland (for PEN Canada)

Are You My Mother?, by P.D. Eastman (and yes, it’s for me)

veggies from the sea

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My new favourite food.
I’ve tried a few other sea veggies but dulse is my hands down favourite. It comes in two forms: leaves, like the picture—which lightly sauteed in coconut or olive oil, go crunchy and make a great side to anything. Had them with eggs the other day—delicious, especially if you like your food with undertones of beach wrack and fog.

Also comes in flakes, which I sprinkle straight from the bag onto salads; packed with iodine and protein and other good things and—as if all this isn’t excitement enough—it eliminates the need for salt.

Only down side—I haven’t yet found a Canadian brand. Surely we produce this stuff on our own nautical peripheries??

Suggested reading while eating sea veggies: Drinking the Rain, by Alix Kates Shulman

a few canadian words worth repeating

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I don’t do book reviews. At best I occasionally air thoughts on something I’ve read… and then not always the whole book, but one story, one essay, an aspect that strikes me. A sentence maybe. Recently I’ve begun a Q&A series, which I enjoy because I can pretend the chat is happening over food and drink. I even note the appropriate food and drink for the book. (Online is such nerdish tiny-personal-universe fun, eh?) Most of what I read, however, goes publicly unbabbled—for reasons due mainly to timing and whim.

Having said that, I like what John Mutford is doing over at The Book Mine Set, especially his annual Canadian Book Challenge, so have gathered and submitted a collection of CanLit babbled about on Matilda over the past year.

The art of reviewing I respectfully, and happily, leave to others.

~

My Father’s Hands Spoke in Yiddish, by Karen Shenfeld (poetry)

BoYs,  by Kathleen Winter (short stories)

Join the Revolution, Comrade,  by Charles Foran (personal essays)

Close to Spiderman, by Ivan E. Coyote (short stories)

The Cat’s Pajamas, by Wallace Edwards (children’s picture book but really so much more…)

Comfort Me with Apples,  by Joe Fiorito (extremely delicious essays on food)

Stunt, by Claudia Dey (a novel, which I nearly didn’t finish, then loved madly for reasons I am only too happy to explain)

Player One, by Douglas Coupland (Massey Lectures in the form of a novel, sort of…)

Room, by Emma Donoghue (a novel, read in a garret)

Seeds of Another Summer, by Beth Powning, (essays on nature and gardening and life)

CanLit Food Book, edited by Margaret Atwood (beautifully odd assortment of food-related bits by Canadian authors, including recipes, essays, excerpts, drawings, random thoughts, directions for making toast…)