steal away…

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

“Just one word more—please steal time every day, if you cannot find it any other way, to lie on the grass, or in a hammock, under a huge tree this lovely month… and relax. What a tonic this is for the soul. What a rest for weary nerves! Our husbands, children, friends—yes, and the nation—will profit by our relaxation. The greatest need today is for calmer homes, and no fireside can be calm unless its guardian is at peace with the world.” ~Nell B. Nichols, columnist for Woman’s Home Companion, summer 1924

overheard

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

On my way to the store a pony-tailed woman approaches, power-walking with two others in her wake; she’s speaking loudly and I prepare to nod, say good morning, but the ponytail doesn’t make eye contact, too busy rattling on…

“I said to him, I asked him, I said do you like my hair better up or down and he said, I don’t know, hair is hair and I said yeah, I know, but do you think I look prettier with it up or…”

In the moment we pass each other, I notice her walk-mates catch my eye—no words, just a please, please can you help us?? kind of look that makes me smile, glad to be stepping out alone.

∏

A girl, maybe five years old, sits on a big comfy chair at the library, skinny bare legs stick straight out on the seat, pink sneakered feet barely reach the edge. She holds up a picture book the way a teacher would, turns the pages clumsily but with concentration, tongue between teeth; she talks out loud as if reading the story to a class but no one is there except an older woman flipping through a magazine in the chair opposite. The girl closes one book, picks up another from the small stack on her lap, holds it open beside her cheek, peeks around at the pictures while doing her teacher talk, then suddenly turns to the woman: 

“What do you think Michael is making us for lunch?” she says.

The woman barely raises her head, mumbles… “I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see.”

“Okay,” says the girl. And holds up the next book.

∏

Two elderly people in a waiting room, the woman says to the man: “Of course we had the house built, chose the lot and everything—on the first of September it’ll be 53 years since we moved in.”

“When you moving out?” says the man.

“First of September.”

lunch time read: georgian bay gourmet summer entertaining

~ carin ~ 8 Comments

I love old cookbooks. Oldish. My favourites being from the 40’s through the 80’s. Depression era ones are also good, but there’s something irresistible about all that apres war poncing about with the discovery of avocados and kebabs and mandarin oranges in syrup; the way corn flakes and potato chips are used as crust, maraschino cherries and olives are tossed onto everything and platters of undercooked hams, shellacked and skewered with slices of tinned pineapple and unripe honeydew melon. Oh the things you can do with tuna! Or, when in doubt, throw some cream or sugar or liquor into whatever you’re making, and while you’re at it have a swig yourself!

A deliciously hideous pseudo-culinary flamboyance that continued for decades, seeming to peter out only with the arrival of celebrity Chefs and food channels and all-of-a-sudden real food from places beyond the British Isles.

There’s something comforting in all that kitsch, all those olives. Takes me back.

Happily, my most recent acquisition, Georgian Bay Gourmet Summer Entertaining, contains all of the above-mentioned in one form or another, plus people are smoking in the accompanying pictures. It not only took me back to an era, its cheerful everyone-must-have-fun bonfires and boating banter delivered me vicariously to some oddly frenetic cottage where placemats and napkins match and an aproned woman in pumps is all Martha in the kitchen morning til night while three year olds play with lawn darts and a guy in a safari jacket swills rum-laced pineapple juice and burns enormous olive-studded hamburgers. The book was published in 1983 when, evidently, no one was eating local or seasonal as any kind of rule. Lots of jellied salads, tinned fruit and things with marshmallows where marshmallows should never be—but as well, many gems, like a tomato and basil soup with gin, frozen watermelon daiquiris, and bits of trivia such as Georgian Bay has 30,000 islands and is the world’s largest fresh water inland bay. And pears—who knew they ripened from the inside out?

One of my favourite items is something called a Disaster, made by putting popsicles and ice cream into a blender til smooth then “pouring into glasses”. Admittedly, I was hot and thirsty while reading the book, which gave Disaster some added appeal. I haven’t tried it yet. Thinking about it now I see how it might be brilliant or… it could live up to its name.

Ah well, if it’s no good I’ll float some marshmallows, add a maraschino cherry or a splash or three of cognac.

Will report once the experiment has been conducted. :)

Happy weekend!

pink lemonade: the real thing

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Step One: find some clean purple clover, i.e. where pesticides, car fumes and/or other schmutz has not touched it. (mine came from the market)
STEP TWO:  remove green bits, rinse blossoms (store where they can dry out or they’ll go soggy and rot; can be used fresh or dried; dried they can last months).
STEP THREE:  add 3 cups blossoms to 4 cups water; boil 5 to 7 minutes then strain (the cooked blossoms are a nice garden mulch/compost).

The liquid will be brown at this point but when you add 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice, alchemy happens and it becomes… pink. (A very fun ‘presto’ moment—to watch, or stun audiences with!)

Honey or stevia to taste.Chill.

:)))

nature studies

~ carin ~ 3 Comments

1.  A turtle the size of a small bread plate is trying to cross the road beside the Shoppers Drug Mart. A large crow walks behind, peck pecking pecking at its shell. The car in front gets so close I see the turtle duck. I pull over, blocking almost a whole lane. I get out of my car. The crow flies off and I’m standing beside the turtle, pointing at it, indicating to oncoming traffic in both directions that it should go wide. People smile. No one honks. I’m grateful.

I don’t want to pick it up; I’m partly afraid of hurting it and partly afraid of it hurting me. It occurs to me how little I know about amphibians. They don’t bite do they? My plan, such as it is, is to shuffle along, keep directing traffic until the poor thing gets to the other side. The problem is all these cars. The turtle soon retreats into its shell and stays there. Another car stops, a woman gets out. She says she’s not afraid to pick up the turtle, that she’s got paramedic grade hand sanitizer in her trunk. I continue directing traffic while she takes pictures (oddly, I’m without a camera), then asks me to take one of her holding it. She smiles like it’s an award (and in a way it is) while traffic veers around us. Finally, we get down to business, agree it was probably heading toward a small pond down a grassy bank opposite us. She carries it to the edge of the water and I see its head come out, see the yellow markings under its chin as it scoots into the reeds.

Back at our cars, the woman shows me her paramedic grade hand stuff; she has a whole medical kit, although she’s not a paramedic, she says, just likes to be prepared. In fact, she tells me, not long ago, she helped clean up an elderly woman who’d fallen in a parking lot and scraped herself from head to toe. We get into our respective cars and drive off in the same direction. Eventually she turns into a Timmy’s and I continue on to Canadian Tire.

2.  There are baby robins somewhere in our yard. I haven’t seen them but I can hear them. The serviceberries are disappearing and the worms are looking worried. 

3.  I noticed yesterday for the first time that a yellow finch doesn’t fly like other birds. It flies like this: flapflapflapflapflapflapflap… gllllllllllllllllllllliiiide…. flapflapflapflapflap…. gllllllllllllllllliiide. Like aerial running jumps before becoming a wee missile, wings tucked close to its body.

4.  When a fly enters your car at, say, point A, and doesn’t exit (despite open windows) until, say, point X—about 50 kms away—how confused will it be? Will it find its way home or just move into the new neighbourhood? What about its kids? Do flies sleep?

5.  A van cuts me off. I watch as the driver—a guy who hangs his whole left arm out the window, his multi-ring-bedecked hand dangling down the side as if broken—continues to veer in and out of traffic, erratically, cutting off every car in turn, a Baby on Board sign prominently displayed in his back window.