We are just at the conclusion of our two week stretch at the cottage. 

Preparing food for each other and guests has been a primary focus for D and I and I have loved every minute of it.  But I will also be glad to be home and reacquaint ourselves with the kids and our mandatory Sunday suppers.  Tonight the breeze is actually very cool and I also look forward to the time of making soups and stews with ingredients that I intend to fetch from St. Norbert Market-a pleasure that I also miss when at the cottage. 

I am also anticipating the opportunity to eat alone again.  This is a complicated feeling and one that I cannot express as eloquently as Ann Patchett in this excerpt from “Dinner for One, Please James”.  I read a wonderful collection of food essays earlier this summer in a collection entitled:  “Alone in the Kitchen an Eggplant” (edited by Jenni Ferrai-Adler).

“So while it is with deep and genuine pleasure to nuture those I love, it is an equal pleasure to be off the hook for the responsibility as well, to pass over food that is delicate and beautiful and complex in favour of the item that is likely to spoil.  Eating as a simple means of ending hunger is one of the greatest liberties of being alone, like going to the movies by yourself in the afternoon, or back in those golden days of youth, having a cigarette in the bathtub.  It is a pleasure to not have to take anyone else’s pleasures into account or explain why I like to drink my grapefruit juice out of the carton.  Eating, after all, is a matter of taste, and taste cannot always be good taste.  The very thought of maintaining high standards, meal after meal is exhausting.  It discounts all the peanut butter that is available in the world.” 

Kath’s quote: “Oh, the pleasure of eating my dinner alone!”-Charles Lamb

Today I leave for China to visit Priscilla, and international student who lives with me during the school year.  I have been preparing myself for this trip for months, yet I really don’t have any idea what to expect.  Sure I have looked at the websites and talked with others who have made the trip, but I think that China is going to be a totally mind opening experience for me. 

Of course I am looking forward to experiencing the food.  People from Asia tell me the food is very different from what we Canadians think of as “Chinese” food. When Priscilla and I go out to eat we love to go for dim sum which she says is similar to what she would eat at home, although she had never heard the expression “dim sum”.  I am thrilled to hear that lovely steamed dumplings and noodle soups are what I have to look forward to. I doubt that there will be a deep fried shrimp in sweet and sour sauce in sight and to that I say hallelujah, bring it on. A few friends that visited Beijing told me about street vendors serving live scorpions and beetles on a stick, something I will be sure to avoid. I am an adventurous eater, but there are limits.  I am most looking forward to trying Beijing “Peking” Duck. 

On the day I picked up my Chinese visa I stopped at my favourite Chinese place, The New Hong Kong Snack House. Owner, Robert likes to give me a hard time about not visiting as often as I used to. I once worked with a woman who ate there twice a week so needless to say I was a regular.  I treated myself to his wonderful hot pork noodle soup and beginner plate which includes steamed shrimp dumplings, sweet pork bun, Peking perogies and yummy meatballs.  A great way to get my taste buds ready for the culinary adventure I am about to undertake.

Kath’s quote:  “(In Canton) the Chinese fondness for snacks and small eats reaches a kind of apotheosis.”E.N. Anderson

 There was a day last week when I did something very unusual.  Because I had spent the day in the cottage, working remotely for my clients, I decided to go to the beach for the evening.  I heated up my dinner of left overs and packed it, my book and a glass of red wine into the basket of my bicycle.  I spent hours that evening, savouring my dinner of Fruite De Mare linquine, sipping my wine and reading my book. 

When I have made an investment of an evening to watch the sun set, it is rare that you can pull me off the beach before it touches the horizon.  But on this particular evening, something else was drawing me home.

When I got to the edge of the beach path, a sensation came over me that suggested to me that my brother was leaving this world.  I continued on my way and then got caught up with other details.  I spoke to Daughter #1 on the phone and while doing so there was a beeping on my line.  I thought that it was my husband as we too have nightly telephone chats when I am alone at the cottage.  I called him next and while I was speaking to him, a neighbour came to the door and told me that I was to contact the city as soon as possible.  When I made the call, the news was devastating.  My brother had just passed away.  The range of emotions that I went through was vast but not one of them was shock as I had already been aware of the news, which had been delivered to me at the end of the beach path.

I realize now that I cannot write about my happy fascination with food when I am unhappy.  Now the good news is that I have not missed posting 2-3 times per week in the last year and a half, and so that is an indication that I am a pretty content person.

But it is now the end of the week of my bother’s memorial, a day that in itself was a gathering of food and laughter and memories.  I have a back log of restaurant reviews, guest blogger post and dinner events to share with you and I am able to write again.  I believe that Tom is in heaven, enjoying a banquet table laden with the imagination’s most delicious food.

Even when the mosquitoes are at bay in the city, we are not so fortunate at the beach house.  Our little cottage was purchased in six hours and was definitely a love investment and not one of rational assessment.  We are in a little birch grove, surrounded by pine and poplar, which we love.  But we are also the lowest lot in the area and this wet spring we had a “waterfront” lot.  Frogs in the front yard were a constant and one day ducks came to check out the pond.  Even when other lots had spring run off dry up, we were in the muck.  As a result, our mosquito seaason lasted longer than most.

But this long weekend has been glorious-no rain and no mosquitoes!  We have taken full advantage: huddled over crosswords, Mastermind, Scrabble and cribbage on the deck, playing a game called red neck golf (?) on the lawn, swinging in a hammock chair newly acquired in the DR and listening to Beatles music around the firepit until late into the evening.

It has also meant al fresco dining.  Almost every meal has been served on the deck which means the screen door gets a workout when the table is being set but perfectly efficient in every other sense.  And if we have not had too many pre-dinner cocktails, we remember to light the citronella candles to keep any scragglers away.

Last night we expanded the table surface with a gorgeous red retro kitchen table.  It will find its ultimate home in our son and daughter-in-law’s tree top apartment.  But for the weekend it means we can sit eight quite comfortably.

The menu last night was Sister #2’s chicken pita’s with black bean and corn salsa and orzo, wild rice & lentil salad.   For dessert she made the ridiculously simple but of so decadent Fruit Cocktail cake with a brown sugar/milk sauce and ice cream.  Let me know if you don’t have this recipe-it is a keeper.

Somehow everything tastes better out in the fresh air!

Kath’s quote:  “The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight…”-M. F. K. Fisher

Sometime even a foodie needs a weekend off.  By this I mean that I have been surrounded by amazing dishes to request the recipes for and photograph, but I have not. (D likes to publicly complain that he hasn’t enjoyed a hot taste of food since I started this blogging thing).

We arrived Friday evening at the beach house to a bulging platter of grilled chicken Thai salad served on the deck.  We did not even unpack the car-just tucked into the meal, wine and an oportunity to get caught up on family news of who was going to be out at our three cottages, who was travelling where this weekend and anecdotes from our youngest family member who had just had a marvellous 2 week vacation.  “Auntie-ask me what grade I going into?” (He’s 2).  “What grade are you going into this fall Colton?”  His answer: “grade Home and Miss Mommy’s gonna be my teacha!”

Daughter #2 and her Frenchman drove Grandma out and got to join us for 24 hours before they headed to his home town for the next eight days.  Sister #2 made them eggs benedict as a send off.  Her poached eggs are perfectly cooked, the English muffins toasted so that they are not too doughy and she tops them off with with an extra generous ladle of bernaise sauce. 

Almost immediately cleaning up from brunch, D got supper going.  He fired up the barbie and I chopped up the veggies to add to the roaster for ribs.  He had marinated them in apple cider.  He covered the roaster and then closed the barbie lid and left them there for the entire after noon.  When we walked back and forth on the road that links our cottages, we caught the aroma and knew that supper would be a treat.  He drained and cooled them and then put them back on the grill to brush with barbeque sauce and more splashes of apple cider.  Soon after supper, he was at the stove again making his Mom’s hot fudge sauce recipe which is a much requested cottage dessert.   

This morning there is the annual pancake breakfast at the sports field as it is homecoming weekend at Lester Beach.  We are opting instead for salami denvers when D gets home from tennis with the guys from Grand Beach and our son and wife arrive from the city.  He has just been to the airport to drop off his sister and pick up his wife.  She has been away on a mission trip to the Domincan Republic.  Sister #3 is vacationing in Bejing.  Sister #2 is grouting a mirror that she has decorated with beach glass for their not yet built cottage that will provide the fourth property of our vacation compound. 

There are beach towels drying on the railing, newspapers and open novels lying around, a big white lab sleeping in thse sun, bouguets of day lilies attracting bees and a cool breeze in the surrounding birch and pine-life is good.  Is very good indeed.

Kath’s quote: “A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.”-W. H. Auden