I was at an event this week and a person sitting opposite me wondered where she could find an authentic Mexican Rice recipe. I have made this one oodles of time and sent it off to her.

The first meal I ever ate on Isla was decades ago at La Lomita. Where was yours?

We are off to the island in 14 sleeps and I am eagerly anticipating one of the many reasons we love the island so much and that is the food! When I come home I cook Mexican food to keep the memories and experiences vivid. It occurred to me than many persons on the Isla Mujeres’ Food page (that I moderate) would be interested in these recipes too, when they regretfully arrive home.

So here we go:

http://littleyellowschoolhouse.org/

https://islakids.org/

http://islaanimals.org/

https://www.islascholarships.com/

Kath’s quote: “Education is the most powerful tool you can use to change the world”.-Nelson Mandela

Love never fails.

I mentioned recently that I took a blogging hiatus in order to rethink where I was at with food and life. Even though I struggle to find the words to describe my new attitude, I am experiencing confirmation that my epiphany is on track.

One confirmation, (believe it or not) is the amazing minute and a half commercial recently aired by Loblaw’s/Superstore where the narrative is about dreaming 75 years of dreams and then finally dreaming “where you are now”-outdoors, around an enormous table, with multi-generations of family/friends. The final graphic suggesting: “Eat Together”. The truth is, I don’t even remember seeing food in the Superstore commercial. So I am concluding it is not about the food it is about “together”.

Now I will confess that there are times that I make one-bowl dinners so that D and I can catch up on a favourite Netflix series or catch the puck drop of a Jets game, but for the most part we eat together at our kitchen peninsula most evenings, sometimes with a candle lit to brighten the winter darkness.

Getting a nutritious hot meal on the table is just part of my daily routine so the need to scale back preparations to do so is not a big deal for me, but for two income couples, students living alone or young families with active kids, the task must be overwhelming. Enter the new approach that I have towards food (and life): from scratch, simple, uncomplicated… Claire Tansey the author of “Uncomplicated” shared recently that we all need to “lower our expectations” in order to make daily cooking a part of our routines.

Another confirmation are the cookbooks that Daughter #1 has gifted me with recently and the one that I added to my collection last evening: “Family”, “Simple”, “Uncomplicated”.

Claire Tansey is straightforward and without pretense. I was so sad to have missed her when she was in Winnipeg this past September at the Food Bloggers Canada event. Last night though we had a chance to chat, hear her interviewed and watch her in her element-mic’d, pony-tailed and posed at an enormous wooden cutting board ready to share her thoughts on everything from knife skills to salt. This was all delivered at Deluca’s Cooking Studio by my dear friends at Canola Connect.

I cannot wait to dive into Claire’s beautiful cookbook. I have only had a chance to flip through, but it is thoughtfully laid out with sumptuous photos and straight-forward recipes. Pick up “Uncomplicated” as soon as you are able. You will come to understand where the “Food Revolution”  started by many, is currently at.

With the crew from Deluca’s, Tainsey prepared our uncomplicated dinner from her new cookbook. The kitchen commenced with a yummy snack to hold us until the entree arrived (you can call amuse bouche if you’d like). Popcorn? Yes popcorn, you can’t get more uncomplicated than that, can you? But this was no ordinary popcorn-it was simply seasoned with both salt and sugar and a pinch of cayenne pepper to add what Claire referred to as “sexy sizzle”.

A little salad came next as Claire declared “salad is the essence of uncomplicated”. Greens, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper-that’s it.

Next up was a delectable rosemary pork tenderloin which had been roasted with broccoli and potato wedges. The pork was cooked to a perfect pink and full of its natural juices.

Surrounded by Canola family, I was content to put down my fork and call it an evening, then along came Claire’s chocolate cake. I enjoyed it immensely but with my last bite I had to run. My mantra and new attitude of making time for the most important people in life by making less fuss and muss in the kitchen also takes time management: I was home in time for a visit with D and the evening was perfect!

Kath’s quote: “Brown stuff tastes good.“-Claire Tansey

Love never fails.

I love to read and I love to cook. My family knows this best and that is why my eldest gave me Outlander Kitchen which I wrote about last week. At any given time I will have a work of fiction and another of non-fiction, in addition to what I have going on my Kindle and what I am reading for blog research.

I typically borrow books from Sister #2 who holds an unbelievable library or my eldest who’s book collection is equally fine but focused towards literature that helped her attain her Masters Degree in Disability Studies. In fact her thesis included excerpts from various fiction and how she related to it in light of her personal disability. The thesis is absolutely fascinating, but I’m her Mom, so I guess that makes me biased. If you would like a copy to ready for yourself, just let me know and I can send it to you.

I also borrow extensively from the library. D and I sometimes go on book dates. We will spend a cozy evening in a bookstore and while I am there, I will make a note about new authors and titles I would like to read and then come home, go online and request them from the library. A good friend of mine who happened to own a bookstore asked me to please not advertise this habit of mine, so that booksellers (who already have a tough go of it), could make some money. I do also purchase second books on Amazon.

When I am in the midst of a good read, I use a bookmark to keep my place but I also turn up the bottom corner of a page that includes a particular culinary reference. I go back through the book once I am finished and make note of these references. Sometimes you see them below as one of “Kath’s Quotes”.

I have never been invited to a book club but I think that I would greatly enjoy one, not just to hear other perspectives but to imbibe with some other bookies. Here is one such book that is extremely popular among the book-club set. It is called The Book Lover’s Cookbook by Shauna Kennedy Wenger and Janet Kay Jensen. Together they have compiled many references to noshing in literature both past and current and then included the recipe for said reference. For example a recipe entitled “Wished-For Spicy Tomato Sauce with Meatballs” includes a reference from Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

A number of my favourite writers are quoted, in addition to Ernest Hemingway, including: Anne Tyler, Isabel Allende, Frank McCourt, Maya Angelou, Jan Karon, Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Isak Dinesen (Babette’s Feast), Barbra Kingsolver, Elizabeth Berg, Maeve Binchey, Toni Morrison, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Charlotte Bronte, Marlena de Blasi, Robertson Davies, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fanny Flag, Charles Frazier, Joanne Harris, Alice Munro, John Irving, Wally Lamb, D.H. Lawrence, Madeline L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Laura Esquivel, Colleen McCullough, Yann Martel, James A. Michener, Anais Nin, Rosamunde Pilcher, Annie. E. Proulx, Anita Shreve and last (but not least) Amy Tan. Wow, I didn’t think the list would be that long!

As I write this it is the coldest day of the year and throughout the night it was -50 degrees! Last night we snuggled up in front of a hockey game and then got under the feather covers to read our books as the wind howled outside our window. Luckily for me, I work from home and had no client meetings to venture out for. This evening just may be the repeat of the last one. Stay warm Lovies.

Kath’s quote: “The return to the kitchen was not easy. I wanted my daughter to know her past, to eat what I had eaten in my childhood; however, I quickly realized that I no longer remembered my family’s recipes…I forced myself to try and remember a recipe on my own. And that is how I discovered, as I had already known in my childhood, that it was possible to hear voices in the kitchen”.-Laura Esquivel, Between Two Fires

Love never fails.

I first read Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander in the 90’s when we were busy with kids. I distinctly remember dropping Boo (our youngest) off at her dance class and then finding a spot at a coffee shop near by. A mixture of snow and rain was falling outside and I don’t mean “falling” in a pretty snow globe way but dumping down. As a Mom I was always a nervous driver with my kids in the car and I was already worried about my drive home.

But for 45 minutes I didn’t think about another thing pertaining to my life-I was totally swept away by the story of Claire and Jamie. Fast forward 25 years and our eldest recommends that I catch an Outlander episode. She was quite certain that I would love the music score, the natural beauty of Scotland and the gorgeous cinematography and she was right-I was hooked at the opening credits.

Now it so happened that Sister #2 who is as avid reader as myself had just completed reading the final book of the Outlander series and loaned me a shopping bag full of 1400 page books. It took me an entire winter to move from book two to the final story that Diane Gabaldon had written (until that time that is).

So now I am addicted to the TV show and addicted to the novels! At the Christmas of that same winter said daughter gave me a cookbook for Christmas (it is her thing for me an I love it!). It of course was entitled Outlander Kitchen. I poured through the book like a work of fiction as Theresa Carle-Sanders had received permission form Diana to include excerpts from the first books. Each excerpt is connected to mention of a dish or a recipe, hence the delightful theme of the cookbook.

I must confess that I have actually not made any meal from the book. That is because I keep my recipe books close at hand in the kitchen and I had put Outlander Kitchen on an office shelf with other books that combine recipes and literature. Well as of today, Outlander Kitchen is migrating to the kitchen shelf. I look forward to sharing my successes with you in the future.

A postscript to all of this, I was at a Food Bloggers Canada conference and I heard on our final day together that Theresa was a fellow blogger and had attended the conference. I tried to no avail to find her because Outlander fans love to connect! Supposedly, I had missed her by thaaat much….. I reread her bio on the book fly leaf to find that she lives on Pender Island in BC- a place I have tried so hard to visit. I believe 2020 will be the year and in the mean time I look forward to reading her newly published Outlander Kitchen II: Journey to the New World and Back Again.

Theresa’s dedication in her first book reads thusly-

Kath’s quote:

To Howard, My Englishman.

You look and sound a lot like Frank,

but your heart, and love is pure Jamie.

Love never fails.

I have taken a break for the past month to reflect on where I am in life, this space and a fresh approach. Coincidentally the government of Canada’s new food guide was released yesterday and it too is a new look at how we should regard our food.

https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/

I especially appreciate the references to mindfulness, cooking at home more often (avoiding fast and processed food) and eating more often with others-in essence “en” joying eating and food. Now, I have always professed that there is much joy (and love) in food. For me there is both joy in the preparation and in the sharing.

I also received a beautiful gift this week. I fessed up on Instagram that a good friend and I have girl crushes on Joanna Gaines and that same friend gifted me with Joanna’s beautiful new cookbook: Magnolia Table-a collection of recipes for gathering. I have yet to try one of the recipes but I am enamored just the same by what she shares of food and her family in the Introduction.

Last evening I co-hosted a training evening and we kicked the evening off by breaking bread together. I knew that I was cooking for up to 18 people so I made a vat of my favourite chili. I adapted a Zest Cooking Solutions (Sister #3) recipe. Where it called for a Veggie Ground Round I used ground chicken and I also boosted it with yellow corn for colour and kale for nutritional oommph. Unfortunately I did not take any photos of the recipe preparation or the end result because in truth I didn’t know last evening that today would be the day that my personal reflection was done and I was back to blogging.

I doubled the recipe for the large group. The dish could have been served with crushed taco chips but I decided to make some cheesy corn muffins to go along with it. It was a hit!

Kath’s quote: This meal embodied comfort and safety to me. It felt like home. To this day whenever I eat spaghetti, that warm, fuzzy feeling hits me and I feel like all is well in the world.” -Joanna Gaines

Love never fails.