I have been in TO this weekend and this is significant for two reasons: 1) Even though I am not much of a shopper when I am at home, I do love to shop in cities not my own  and 2) I met Stephanie from World Vision Canada at a conference that I was at and wanted an opportunity to share the amazing work that they do.

We already have the World Vision Gift Catalogue at home in the bathroom basket with the rest of our “urgent” reading material.  This is because Daughter #2 and The Frenchman are foster parents to a World Vision child.

We are a family that loves to celebrate Christmas and plans are already being made about drawing names for our gift exchange, the location of our celebrations, dinner menu, etc., etc.  I sometimes get stressed about Christmas because I want to give the family “exactly” what they asked for.  When I read through a brochure like the one provided by World Vision, I realize what a ridiculous thing my stress is.  “Lydia knows what it is like to be poor.  To be hungry and have no food.  To be sick and have no medicine.  To not have even one dress without holes.  Her parents are farmers barely scraping by in the bush country of Uganda.  But this little girl’s life has begun to change…”

And so I am rethinking gift giving (and receiving) this Christmas.  Sure I have been dreaming about that Kitchen Aid Mixer but that money could buy the following:

clothing for 250 children, or

9 pigs, or

medicines for 120 children, or

36 soccer balls, or

help protect 7 child laborers, or

help restore 5 child soldiers, or

help 5 sexually exploited children, or

educate 6 girls, or

provide a latrines for 3 communities, or

60 fruit trees

Without that mixer I will expend more calories and conserve energy too.  My life is so full and I am richly blessed.  I know this in my soul, so this Christmas, why do I need one more “thing”?

Kath’s quote: “It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.”-Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Love-that is all.

One day last winter, a friend sent me a link about a recipe contest that she thought that I should enter as the prize was a ticket to a food bloggers conference in Washington DC entitled Eat, Write, Retreat.  Well, I was one of two winners of the contest and found myself booked into a gorgeous Washington Hotel with my roomie, a successful blogger in her own right, from Montreal.

This occurred last April and although the high from the time of being surrounded by some of the US’s most successful food bloggers has normalized, there were moments that changed my writing/blogging life and because I am my own brand, have changed my life.  Do you follow this train of thought?

A group of professionals were assembled (in cyber-space, I presume) to critique our blogs and I acted upon every suggestion that they provided and have been very happy with the results (especially with the quality of my photographs).  If you have been a long time follower of mine, perhaps you agree.  This face lift and the message from one of our guest speakers about focusing our passion into our blog, have inspired me afresh about my product and gave me the courage to approach some unexplored arenas.

In addition, soon after I arrived home, I was notified by Uptown Magazine that I had one Winnipeg’s Favourite Blog.  This was quite an honour as Winnipeg boosts a bevy of talented bloggers.  For me the thrill was that it was not just that I was a favourite “foodie” blogger but a favourite full-on blogger!

As a result of both circumstances, I am now a regular columnist for Winnipeg’s community newspapers.  This in itself has been a treat as I can see the appreciation from the small restauranteurs and their families when I return to visit them after a piece has been published.  Smiles, hugs and gratitude is my reward-let alone the additional exposure!

I also had the confidence to explore a brand new experience and have been taking on projects with national companies for food-styling work.  This has put me in touch with some talented chefs and familiar brands and although I had no idea what hard work food-styling was, it is also immensely satisfying.

Fast forward to today.  I am off to Toronto in the morning to attend another conference.  This one is entitled She’s Connected and I am attending on behalf of Canada Beef because since this whirl wind all began I have also become a Canadian Beef Ambassador!  By coincidence (?) that is also who sent me to Washington.  At this weekend’s conference I will be attending with the other Canadian Beef Ambassadors as well as gal pals from the Manitoba Canola Growers and Winnipeg friends like Marlo Broux who started Girl Talk Radio.

As well as learning specific skills to take my blog to another new level from speakers like the former editor of Cosmo and my Canadian hero Amanda Lang, I am looking forward to meeting new female friends who are recreating their lives in this exciting digital world.  And so Heather Travis, I can’t wait to meet you in person.  You may not have known this last spring, but you have changed my life!

Kath’s quote: “Life is so brief that we should not glance either too far backwards or forwards…therefore study how to fix our happiness in our glass and in our plate.”-Grimod de la Reynière

Love-that is all.

I will admit it.  I get focused on the things that I care deeply about and then I allow my world to revolve round those things.  The movies and documentaries I watch, the books, both fiction and non that I read, the articles I peruse in magazines and on line, are already filtered through the “everything about Kath” screen.  This is not a bad thing necessarily, just life.  In the mean time I allow the media (and often the more extreme American media) to shape my impressions about certain aspects of today’s world and I create stereo-types about people and things that I do not really know about.  Does this happen to you as well?

Case in point: Before my weekend away with the Manitoba Canola Growers at “Be Well Camp”, I had a very different impression of a Manitoba cattle raising family.  But now I have had the pleasure of meeting Carman and Donna Jackson of the High Bluff Stock Farm.

This was my first visit to the area surrounding Inglis, MB.  The setting is rolling and lush.  We passed the scenic Assiniboine River Valley and the Shell River Valley which join at the Shellmouth Dam to form the Lake of the Prairies, en route to the farm that morning.

Mom Donna and Tomina, the youngest of the five Jackson daughters are absolutely gorgeous! Tall, lean, healthy and glowing (but also stylish and well-coiffed)-they are a testament to country living.  I wonder if I could transform myself if I spent some time on their farm…..

Carman and Donna were perfectly articulate about their farm and the Canadian beef industry.  You can discern in a moment that they are well educated and on top of their business.  When you learn that the rest of the girls are off at various high profile universities and careers, you see the commitment that the family has made to making the most intelligent decisions for their animals and the environment.

Their beautiful, white coated Charolais herd are obviously well loved and not shy around humans. One of them really wanted to get into a family photo.

And so the Jackson family created a 360 impression of a cattle farm family for me.  Thank you Carman and Donna. And to all of the other families who I previously regarded with my high fluting/urbanite glasses on-please forgive me.  I was misinformed but now I have been enlightened!

Does anyone know why I instantaneously fell in love with their horse?

Kath’s quote: “Farmers are the only indispensable people on the face of the earth.”-Li Zhaoxing

Love-that is all.

I would consider my family hospitable people.  By this I mean we take our turn hosting Christmas and dinners at the lake and enjoy going to an extra bit of trouble when we entertain.  We are very intentional and organized when we host.  We divvy up responsibilities and tasks so that the evening will go off without a hitch.

I cannot imagine welcoming a busload of absolute strangers (let alone food writers).

I cannot imagine pulling this off and celebrating my grandson’s birthday in the same evening.

I cannot imagine hosting anything at all after devastating winds have threatened my community and our livelihood.

I cannot imagine doing this without my husband who gets called away at the last minute to answer an alarm as a volunteer fire fighter.

I cannot imagine pulling together any kind of composure and grace under these circumstances.

There is “hospitality” and there is what I call “radical hospitality”.

And yet that is just what Carol Dalgarno did this past Friday evening when Pen-Dale Farms in Newdale, MB was the first stop on Manitoba Canola Grower’s “Be Well” Weekend.

Since Bruce had been called away to fight a field fire in the area, we never actually had the chance to meet him but had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with his family and friends who shared their story. Pen-Dale is a fourth generation farm and they operate a 3000 acre mix of canola, cereals, oilseeds, grasses and pedigree seeds.  All this seems daunting enough but they do so at an elevation approaching 2000 feet which means that the area has one of the shortest growing seasons for agricultural land in Manitoba.

I know that I would have immediately taken to Bruce as my sweet Dad was also a grain farmer who left his land in southern Saskatchewan only because there was a war to be fought but returned every year to help out at harvest time and then sent his eldest sons to do the same, until his parents were too elderly to sustain the land.  “Farming allows Bruce to feel the earth, to smell and watch crops grow.”

We were treated to my first “Supper in the Field”- a term known to most farm families.  During harvest time meals are taken to the field so as to be time efficient for the workers.  Often friends who have other occupations assist at harvest time and so there are many to provide a hearty meal for.  A friend of Carol’s had been recruited to feed us and I will have to get one of my fellow travelers to remind me of her name.

Salads had been prepared from the abundance of freshly picked tomatoes and cucumbers, baby potatoes boiled and mashed,

and beef was sliced to our liking along with hearty baked beans.

A gorgeous pumpkin trifle was our dessert, and even though I shy away from desserts in the city, I enjoyed the first of many sweet tastes of the weekend.

The sun was just setting as we boarded our bus to head to our next destination but I will not ever forget the Dalgarnos and their radical hospitality.

Kath’s quote: “Beans are highly nutritious and satisfying, they can also be delicious if and when properly prepared, and they posses over all vegetables the great advantage of being just as good, if not better, when kept waiting, an advantage in the case of people whose disposition or occupation makes it difficult for them to be punctual at mealtime.”-Andre Simon

Love-that is all.

A week ago I attended the Funeral Mass for a great man on the Winnipeg restaurant scene.  He had silver hair and was dashingly handsome with a witty sense of humour and an unforgettable laugh.  He drove a truck and no, he was not a delivery person for a food-service company.  He was one of those astonishing men who kept the home fires burning while his wife was a successful restaurant owner and hands on manager.  His wife Joan was one of the first restaurant owner/operators on the Winnipeg scene and in the Keg Restaurant system.  I started at the Garry St. Keg just a short time before her.  I watched her rise through the ranks with her amazing attention to detail, hard work and perseverance.  She could not have done this without a special man at home.

Back in the old Keg days it was like we were family and many of us were-five families in particular: the Chapdelaines, the Furlans, the Reschs, the Grisims and my own.  Many of us worked side by side with our siblings and even our Moms (or in my case my future mother-in-law).  We didn’t all end up in the restaurant business but we learned many fundamentals for business success like loving the hard work, enjoying the celebrations and time to play, all the while keeping an eye on the bottom line.

Last Friday there were three generations of Grisims to mourn alongside three generations of Chapdelaines.  D and I have ignited the hospitality fire in our kids and now J1 is a stellar dining room server at The Keg working for one of Joan and Laurent’s children.  You see two of their five children are the General Managers of the Winnipeg Kegs.  Did I forget to mention this? While Joan was spending all those hours in the hospitality business, she and Laurent raised five children!  At one time or another, all the kids and even one of their grandchildren, all worked in the restaurants.

I am quite sure that you love food and restaurants, otherwise why would you be reading these musings?  So next time you are toasting a restaurant or Chef’s success, remember that behind every Joan there is a Laurent.  Perhaps not so big a person as this man was, with such a booming laugh and such a keen wit but someone to keep it all together at home, none the less.

Kath’s quote: “A married couple who enjoy the pleasures of the table have, at least once a day, a pleasant opportunity to be together.”-Jean-Antheleme Brillat-Savarin

Love-that is all.