Edible Tulip

How To Eat More Fruit

 

I'm back working downtown in an office which means I am back struggling to find ways to eat fresh and healthy homemade food throughout the long days. A couple tips that might help you if you face the same challenges.

1. Find a supermarket near where you work. I'm at Yonge and College and there is a Metro grocery store under the office tower. Not only can I pick up things for dinner on my break, I can also buy things to keep at the office: half melons that are ready to eat for breakfast, baby carrots, hummous, fruit that bruises during travel, i.e. nectarines, plums, peaches and bananas to keep on the desk. 

2. Take 15 minutes on a Sunday and cut up whatever fruit concoction you like and put it in a large container in the fridge. Above I have canteloup melon, an atulfo mango, and organic blueberries. I took one serving of the fruit and put it in a smaller tupperware. I have my breakfast ready to take with me to work each morning with no preparation required. 

3. Forget the attitude that the day is so packed with meetings that you won't have time for lunch and therefore nibble on crackers and the end of a baguette. Because the nibbling will turn into broken off pieces until you've eaten an entire loaf of bread. You won't feel satisfied because you won't have ingested any nutrients of value! Prepare lunches that are mostly devoid of carbs (an afternoon buzz killer, you'll be dozing off by 3 pm) and instead stick to vegetables, protein, and little fat. In the summer, large salads full of romaine lettuce, nuts, legumes and cubes of cheese provide tons of energy. A tin of tuna, mixed with cut up radishes, chopped cucumber and seasoned with sea salt, lemon and olive oil is easy to prepare and more nutritious than almost anything you could find at a salad bar. To make preparing lunches easier, I wash my lettuce and put it into large sealed freezer bags. When the huge plastic tubs of spring lettuces are on sale at the supermarket I buy those and use that lettuce throughout my work week. I make my lunches the night before as I'm preparing dinner then it doesn't become a separate chore to find motivation to tackle. 

  

Sorrel Cream Sauce for Grilled/Pan-Fried Fish

Most people know arugula as the smallish, longish, bittery, lemony salad leaf which is too bad because sorrel is so much better. It's a bit hardier, a bit earthier, has more bite, more pucker, more to chew on, so to speak. I find arugula sort of obnoxious. It's been exploited to the point of being used for its affiliations. You walk into a fancy coffee shop that sells hot pressed sandwiches and you know one is going to include arugula greens with chicken breast. Sigh. Yawn. Anyway, my point is that if you like the taste of arugula, and it's not for everyone, then I'm pretty certain you'll enjoy the experience of sorrel. I eat green peppers raw as I would a nectarine, circling the core, tossing only the stem. And I like my apples as hard and as sour as they come, fresh from the branch, eye peeling assertiveness. So, this is my kind of heavenly herb. One year, a long while back, I was delighted to find a patch of something edible growing in the shade in the perennial garden at my parents country house in the hills outside of Creemore. It had a tight root and stem base but blew out from there in an array of oblong fluttering green. It has a short period of grace before it turns hostile. I think most everything I love shares that characteristic. Early to late Spring is its glory period. Pick it while you can or ask a vendor at a local farmer's market if they have any. They should, it grows in any unfertilized field and grassy expanse. When it starts to flower whorled spikes of red, and the leaves become purple, it will be too bitter to eat, so just leave it be until next spring.

I love it shredded and tossed into salads, the surprising element in an otherwise traditionally simple salad of mixed tender lettuces. It's brazen and bold just so you know I told you so. Sorrel is derived from the Teutonic word for "sour" so take that as a hint. It's not easy for many to love it raw but I can attest that almost everyone thinks its perfect when it's mildly steamed and tossed with butter and cream to make a fish sauce. As you know, I like food that takes about 5 - 10 minutes to prepare. Finicky things are not my forte. This fish dish is the work of minutes. 

Sorrel is tart and acidic. Choose an oily fish to pair with the sauce: rainbow trout, sea bass, mackerel, salmon. 

Sorrel Sauce

1 1/2 cups sorrel

4 filets of fish

Sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

1 tsp olive oil

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp whipping cream 

Recipe Instructions

Wash the sorrel thoroughly and spin dry. Chop the leaves into coarse pieces.

Season the fish fillets with the salt and pepper. Add the olive oil to a heavy bottomed frying pan over medium heat. When the oil gets heated through, add the fillets skin side down. When the flesh is becoming opaque and white, flip the fish over for another minute. Transfer to a warm platter.

Place the butter in the bottom of the frying pan and heat until just melted over a medium flame. When the butter begins to froth, toss in the sorrel, which will wilt and turn a gray green. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool for one minute. Beat in the egg yolk, season to taste with salt and fresh pepper, and then stir in the cream. Spoon over the fish fillets and serve with baby potatoes tossed in olive oil and coarse sea salt.

Note: sorrel can be used in recipes that call for wilted spinach, i.e. omelets and soups. It has healing properties that aid in digestion and stave off scurvy. It's also packed with vitamins C and A. So get foraging and let me know where you find any growing wild. I bet there's some on the hillsides around the community gardens at High Park.

Repost: Rummaging for Ramps

The following was first published in April 2004. It's a repost on Ramps, or Wild Leeks. I wonder if they are still edible. It's getting late in the season. I didn't get around to foraging wild leeks this year, despite the ubiquity of their presence all over the brown mulch covered hillsides on the Mingay Tract in Creemore. I wonder about them, from my 3rd floor desk overlooking Fran's Diner, staring face first into varying tiers of beige brick, as they shoot, prosper, flail, wither in 6 short weeks. I did try to dig one out of the ground one afternoon to see the size of its bulb but if you don't have a good digging tool on you, and I didn't, then you have to scratch through enough dirt for a hen to be happy, and you'll still result in breaking the stem from the bulb and a week's worth of dirty fingernails. The roots are stubborn.

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As soon as I get up north I'm heading out to the dense woods and getting down on all fours with a trowel and a plastic bag. The leeks are generally in full thrush by mid-May in Ontario. By mid-June they're usually getting tough and woody and rather dried out.

A sure sign of spring’s arrival in Ontario is the large clumps of malodorous green leaves in our wooded areas. These are the edible herbaceous spring ephemeral known as wild leeks or ramps (Allium triococcum, Ait.). Allium is the ancient name for garlic from Latin and the bulb of the wild leek, although flavoured like an onion, has a distinctly garlicky zing when cooked.

In late April look for leaves that coil to form colonies that push through the latent ground cover of mulch. The leaves eventually expand and resemble lily-of-the-valley clusters. They appear in patches and thrive in damp soil. You will need a small spade to loosen the earth around the base of the plant so you do not destroy the tender bulb. The bulb is encased in a thin netting which can easily be removed by rubbing your fingers together with the bulb between them or by pulling off the sheathe while running the bulb under cool water. Use both the leaves and the bulb in any recipe that calls for leeks, cooking onions, green onions or garlic.

Long before farmers and harvesters referred to the practice of responsible food production as sustainable agriculture, early settlers already understood the simplicity of re-growth. They used to replant the roots that extend from the base of the bulb so the ramps would continue to grow and flower. The wild leek plant flowers in late summer when the edible bulb has grown too mature and bitter to use. Cherokees and other tribes pickled the wild leeks to extend the life of the bulb and considered them a delicacy. Wild leeks have also been a large part of the regional cuisine of Southern Appalachia. Entire towns get together to celebrate spring by hosting Ramp Festivals known as “Dancin’ and Stinkin’ ” (due to the pungent aroma the wild leeks give off when eaten raw). And finally, on a medicinal note, an ancient folklore remedy suggests rubbing the juice of a crushed bulb on an insect sting to reduce redness and swelling. A timely remedy matched to the arrival of our Ontario honeybees.

Risotto with Ramps

6 leek bulbs, white part only, cleaned and sliced thin
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup Arborio rice (Italian rice)
3 cups vegetable broth
½ cup dry white wine
½ cup radicchio, sliced thin (if available)
½ cup fresh Parmesan, grated
3 Tbsp. Italian parsley, chopped
1 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
Salt & pepper

Cook the leeks in the oil in a large saucepan until tender. Add the uncooked rice. Stir over medium heat for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, bring the broth to a boil in a medium saucepan, reduce and simmer.

Add 1-cup broth to the rice, stirring constantly until it is absorbed. Add the wine and let absorb. Continue adding ½ cups of broth until the rice is slightly creamy and just tender. Just before serving, add the radicchio, the lemon juice, the Parmesan and top with the chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 4 – 6.

Junk Shop Finds -- Pictures and Pitchers

Today was the day I was going to start eating my way up the block on Yonge Street. As with most plans, as soon as you make them, something comes up and veers everything off course. In this case, my dog got sick yesterday, we spent several hours at an emergency clinic, and unwilling to leave him alone, I took the day off. So I'm not even anywhere near Yonge Street and eating a Caribbean roti is about the furthest thing from my mind. Fingers crossed this whole blood in urine thing is an antibiotic treatment away from optimal health for Simon. He's been in the black swampy sewers that hide themselves in the wetlands in the ravine and I'm hoping, because the other diagnoses were much more serious, that he simply picked up a little bacterial bug that decided to hang around in his nether regions a little past due date.

Given the vet bill, it looks like I won't be eating out for, well, the foreseeable future. So, I'm turning my focus to Where To Find Good Things Cheap in Toronto and Refurbished Relics. I tend to find thriftiness a great trait in a person, creative thriftiness even more attractive.

In addition to urban antique stores and sidewalk sales, check out estate sales at auction houses (Ritchies in Toronto, in most small towns held each Saturday morning) where you can often buy a lot for $1 which might include a box of books, old kitchen appliances, picture frames, glass bottles, etc.

1. An antique wood carved picture frame. 50 cents. Refurbished with a piece of mirror cut to size.

2. An enamel jug found in a junk shop for $2 that has become my favourite wide-mouthed vase.

 

What's For Lunch on Yonge Street?

Toronto, how I've missed you.

In the short block north from my office, I can get a tattoo, enjoy a jerk chicken dinner for $2.99 (if I was male, I'm sure I could also get a jerk to go if you know what I mean), and browse adult porn at Kinky Times. Yonge Street is an odd stretch of commerce, prostitution, and panhandling, a street the blends government offices with homeless shelters, a street flooded with public servants and those they serve. I stand in line to get a coffee and I chat with the young boy who is all bitching and complaining about having to go up to the second floor. I know what he's talking about, it's where the provincial courts are. It's like trailing a migration pattern watching the young men flock to the entrance to the correctional services. The street outside is sketchy and melancholic. It will exploit you the moment you look away. It's a neon strip, a sleazy tack of fly paper, a short story in a Raymond Carver novel. The narratives are dark and they are dirty. I am not a street urchin comfortable with oily embraces. I often turn away. I do not groove to the urban hum of bass from open windows. I steel my glance to the pavement, away from the crazies, the pimps, the teenage trannsexuals.

But they are here, and they are living large, on Yonge Street, and combined with the student population just south at Ryerson, the staff at Women's College Hospital on Grenville Street, and the various government offices along College and Bay street, it's a transient hive that expands exponentially during the day, specifically at lunch hour. I figured there must be good eats out there. Good, cheap, hole-in-the-wall food. Food that might reflect the complexity of the people and the location in itself. I took a walk north to Maitland and spotted Caribbean jerk, Nepalese, Napolitan pizza parlours, Korean Barbecue, Persian/Iranian, Middle Eastern, Halal, Thai, Mexican, and too many Japanese sushi and fusion Asian joints to list. Next week I begin my Yonge Street culinary exploration.

** In the realm of sharing good finds: Grace at 503 College Street (new spot in the former digs of Xacutti) is having an incredible Thursday night barbecue deal. For $10 you can savour a plateful of chef Dustin Gallagher's slow-braised pork shoulder, char-grilled chicken, and house-made sausage, sided with roasted Indo-spiced corn on the cob, coleslaw, and potato salad. A complimentary domestic brew is included. Only after 8 pm. And first come, first served.

"Mixing Up The Ingredients For A Great Picnic" in Oneonta, NY

In just a few short weeks, I've gone from country girl fending off wild beasts and insouciant thugs in small town Ontario near Georgian Bay to living in one of the ritziest neighbourhoods in Toronto (first I found my dream apt there and second of all it has the best dog walking for 300 miles, okay, maybe 3 miles, but still - foxes, birds, bunnies and, yup, SKUNKS) and working as a public servant. I'm not complaining about the government job, in fact, I'm enjoying it immensely. It's nice working on a team entirely made up of men. They don't make snide comments or get all passive aggressive out of the blue. The things I don't love about the provincial government offices are threefold: 1, the A/C is out of control. If they turned the temperature up a few degrees then people wouldn't put space heaters under their desk. They should be leading the efforts on reducing energy consumption in office environments. 2, communal washrooms remind me of what sloths we really are. Well, not me, but most people. Who can feel good about herself all afternoon after she tinkles all over the seat, leaving it for someone else to sit in, and leaves a bloody or stooly mess in the toilet not bothering to flush, or flush again. I feel a bit nauseaus as I even think about having to go to the restroom but a fear of a urinary tract infection keeps me from holding all day until I can make a break for home. 3, the outfits. The place is a cesspool of older women in baggy polyester beige suits and younger women in totally inappropriate (thank you for showing me you did not put on underwear today) leggings. Stockings are not pants. Especially, when you are 80 pounds overweight. I am sorry to sound judgmental but coming to work at an office for the government is not a Saturday afternoon at the mall. 

A few weeks ago I got an email from a food writer and reporter from a newspaper in the "heartland of New York State" called The Daily Star. She was writing a piece on picnic foods and wanted to feature my potato salad recipe using apple cider vinegar. This is one of the reasons I write a food blog, to exchange recipes, to share age old ideas surrounding good food and beverages, and to create a bit of an online modern "oral food culture". I liked her article so I'm linking to it here.

  

Toronto, My Unsung

Toronto, as seen from above, from a random rooftop garden, of which there are actually a surprisingly many. So good to switch perspective sometime and look up, look out, look over. Especially in a city. You can tell a lot from its canopy. Or lack thereof.

Toronto is a spectacular place; it's a thriving metropolis of small villages clumped together to form an intimidating swarm of people, diversity of crowds, range of services, and every growing spread of range. It started small and wishy-washy and grew to be mighty and proud. I am proud to return to call it home.

Just in case anyone got confused about a post I wrote very recently about "city folk" which may, understandably, have presented my stance as being a bit, well, negative, I'd like to refract on what I wrote. I got a few emails about it.

Most of my favourite people in the world are city folk. They live and work and call a city their home. Because for most people it is what's possible and what is tangible. Not to mention affordable and, well, reasonable. There are as many kind and quacky individuals in a city as there are in a small town. They are just usually on their bicycles or too busy buried under paper work in university office basements to have time to wave hello. My post "deriding" city folks wasn't intended to poke a finger in the eye of all of those who celebrate in urban living, it was simply to tell a story, to illuminate a particular kind of person, who "seasons" somewhere but doesn't care to understand the what or the who that THAT where is all about. I saw it from the other side this last year and thought I'd narrate it from the bottom up. I was perhaps a bit harsh.

That said, and as with all things in life, nothing is the way it seems, or especially measurable, and for all the tales I have of my year of obnoxious weekenders showing up and blowing their horns through town, I have an equal array of experiences with an array of local towns folk that I wouldn't wish you to meet under the best of circumstances -- lit street, lots of people around, lack of controversial subject matter in any direction. I had my run-ins; don't necessarily want you to as well. Small towns, for all their friendliness and humble charm, can be incestuous and downright dangerous. Drugs and crime run rampant. If you live alone, like I did, and you don't want to cause trouble for yourself, you often turn an eye. You look away. You do not pursue the very things you have always been taught to fight for, to fight against, to make right -- child welfare, domestic violence, petty crime, animal abuse. There are things you learn that are simply NOT YOUR BUSINESS. Sometimes, being anonymous, in a bigger city environment, gives you a bigger, more anonymous voice, a voice to use. And sometimes being in a smaller environment you can use that bigger voice but what you say will come back to mark you. And thsoe who do that, against the odds, are small town heros, to be sure. I wasn't a hero this past year, just an observer.

Caltha Palustris or Marsh Marigold (It's Gone Mad!)

Like most things in spring time, marsh marigolds are fleeting. Their season, like asparagus, and wild leeks, is gone if you don't keep your eyes peeled and a marker on the calendar. These lovely wild flowers hang out in wet, slightly shaded, boggy patches of land. That's probably why I come across them so much because I like to walk in fens and wet woodlands, there's so much life to be discovered in the partial darkness. And to reward me for being so brave against black flies and other gnatty critters, I often come across something mouth dropping. Like this, above. A field lain carefully in gold.

Marsh Marigolds, also called Cowslip, have a confusing reputation as being both edible and poisonous. In this case, I'll lean towards the cautious and stick them in a pretty glass jar.

Ramble On, My Friend

 

**Photos of Simon and I from Georgian Bay life. I wore a toque 240 of the 270 days I've been here, sometimes indoors. I am now salivating as I look at brightly coloured flimsy summer tops and wrap dresses. I'm country girl, for sure, but the woman in me is crying out a bit. As for Simon, well, look out new neighbours, the WOLF is coming to town.

Simon and I are about to face major culture shock. 2 more sleeps until I'm in a bed in Toronto. My bed in my new home in my new neighbourhood in the heart of the city. The saving grace of it all is that from my living room I look out over tree tops growing in one of the wildest most natural parts of town. It might be where the ruffians hang out but that's okay. Simon and I have come to adore the insights of the folks on the darker side of life, on the shadowy part of the sidewalk, on the "other" side of town. I hope to retain the humility of the lessons I've learned as I re-enter the world of botox and boob jobs.

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Let me tell you a story. To begin with, I have had very little contact with "city people" during my 9 months here in this town on the shores of Georgian Bay. There are weekenders for sure and you can tell when Friday afternoon hits because the main artery that bisects the historic section of town (where I live) with the massive expanse of boardwalks, wetlands, fields, trails, beaches along the bay, and, sadly, now the sites of new developments is so clogged, and the traffic light system is so antiquated, that it is Russian Roulette for Simon and me to get across the 4 lane town road on foot. The weekenders have a routine, come Friday afternoon, as far as my observant eyes can tell. It goes like this: drive 20 km over the speed limit into town. Just to make sure everyone knows you have arrived. Barrel your over-sized Lexus SUV or Lincoln Navigator into a spot that's clearly too small for your car resulting in boxing in both cars on either side you so tightly that the drivers will not have a chance in hell of open a door, but hey, you have arrived, you carry city money in your wallet, and that is worth something, isn't it? After rushing through the aisles of the Loblaws, getting excessively impatient with your cart if one of its wheels tries to misbehave, and grabbing many plastic containers of prewashed gourmet imported lettuce to put into your plastic grocery box (because you are environmentallly conscience after all!), you careen your cart through the doors meant for incoming patrons, (they can wait, of course), walk with a purpose in the face of oncoming traffic into the parking lot, you are used to getting your way, after all, unpack your groceries into the back of your monolithic vehicle, and push away your grocery cart, so that is stops directly behind one of the cars beside you. You pause for a nanosecond and think to push it a bit further, or at least into the open space of the parking lot, I mean, that is what that handicapped man is supposed to be hired for anyway, isn't it?

Next stop is the LCBO across the street. Of course you drive there because you expect to walk to the back of the store, request an LCBO consultant, and ask for whatever was written up in this week's Globe and Mail by Beppi Crosariol, from the Vintages section, that will impress your Saturday night dinner guests, and then you take an entire case of it. After someone carries your box of wine out to your car, you get in, crank the AC, roll up the tinted windows, put on your sunglasses, and back up and into something. You hear a crush of metal, and think "fuck, I've hit a BMW and my insurance is going to sky rocket and my husband is going to make me pay out of my allowance. I will not!" So you drive forward, momentarily urged to simply pull a fast one, and take off, there is nobody in the lot. But then you realize that maybe there is damage to your own vehicle and if there is well it would be better to get out and check because then you'll just blame it on the other car. So, you stop your car, heave a sigh, roll your eyes, park, take off your sunglasses, oh the weight of the world, open the door and get out.

You look around.

You see nothing.

There is no BMW, just a repainted 1994 Ford Bronco too far away for you to have hit. And then, just as you turn to get back into your car, you see something shiny, a glint of light refracted from the sun. You see that it's a warp of metal attached to a now permanently damaged tire, spokes broken, protuding like quills, and the front end of the bicycle is practically wrapped around the cement block that separates the parking spots. You feel disgusted by this sight. The lot was built on top of the former town dump but this is unacceptable. Things coming through the soil simply because they do not decompose is not what you pay your municipal taxes to have to look at. You think of calling the Town, to complain, you have contacts in the Mayor's office. But you won't because you forget all about it as you head to the drive through at the neighbouring Starbucks for your grande double-decaf non-fat soy latte and notice that a chip of polish has broken off your middle finger's nail. 

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It is true. The bicycle was not in the best of shape before it got run over and the tire became warped irreparably. It had a milk crate over its rear tire which was tied down with bungee cords. I used to see the owner of the bicycle, an old man with a long white beard, coasting along the boardwalk, as happy as Jerry Garcia cruising down the highway on his hog. We would cross paths almost every morning. The dog would step to the right to make room for the passing bicycle, and he and I would share a silent nod. Both of us whistling through the groves of trees watching the world wake up was powerful enough without having to add conversation. When I hung back in the marsh to throw the ball to the dog in the river and I looked back I'd often see that he had stopped to stare down that stretch of blue that extended so far it met with sky but you could never tell at what exact point liquid turned to air. After a while, he'd nod to himself. He had captured the moment and just as quickly let it go. He'd had had his holy moment. And then he'd ride off. I called him "The Rambler".

I wish I'd have run into him again. But it's been a few weeks now and I don't know where he now hides out. Or how he even gets to where he needs to get to. But there's a house a few streets over from where I live and every Saturday morning they put out a sea of used bicycles, big and small, two wheels or four wheels, racing and cruising, and I'd like to invite him to meet me there and he can pick out something with a comfortable seat so he can get back on his way, so he can "Ramble On".

Garlic Buds and Five Salad Dressing Recipes

I'm nearing D-Day, otherwise known as Moving Day, which also, because, nothing in life is free, just happens to be the one day of heavy rains they are forecasting in, oh, the next 21 days. So I thought I'd write a quick piece between pulling my hair out, screaming at the mewling cats, shaking my fists at the wet shaking dog flinging mud on the walls, packing another book, or wrapping another piece of packing paper around some useless glass ware (for those of us who live alone and typically use 1 wine glass and 1 drinking glass and 1 coffee mug why oh why do we insist on having cupboards full of unused drinking vessels), to write about garlic because historically it has long been credited with not only providing but PROLONGING physical strength and it was often fed to Egyptian slaves as they laboured endlessly building the giant pyramids. So if garlic gave courage and might and a touch of sanity to the Egyptians in the face of the impossible, then maybe it will prolong my short bursts of patience just until I can throw all my shoes in a box. (It also appears that in planning a special romantic dinner, aphrodisiacs like oysters and strawberries and fondue and what not are fine for setting a mood, but maybe it's lots of garlic that will end up turning the night into something to remember).

Last year at the Collingwood Farmer's Market, early in the season, there was a man who only sold garlic buds. I use garlic cloves extensively and I have cooked with garlic scapes before as well but these little purple nubs were new to me. The gentleman told me to just break them off with your hand, and use them raw, or cooked, exactly like you would garlic. The papery small wispy things in the picture are not of much use, but the pomegranate coloured buds you see below are where it's at. In cooking, I simply took a bulb and rubbed it between my fingers over the heating olive oil in a pan and they popped off really easily. Their flavour is intense but in a young garlic aromatic way, not in a heady, old, too bitter and tongue marinating sort of way. Ask around next time you visit a market. They have a very short season before they grow up and get all overpowering in their true bulb form. Isn't that always the way.

Here are a few salad dressings that you could crumble a few garlic buds into for bite. I don't think I need to give directions. Just mix the ingredients together, adding the fresh herbs to the salad when tossing with the dressing, and season with sea salt or coarse salt and fresh cracked pepper. Also, feel free to substitute light versions of sour cream and mayo in any of the recipes.

Buttermilk Dressing with Horseradish - good on coleslaw

1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tbsp horseradish
1/2 tsp wasabi
2 garlic cloves, minced, or mashed with seasalt OR 4-5 garlic buds
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
Lemon juice to taste

Green Goddess Dressing

1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp tarragon
1/2 cup parsley
3 tbsp chopped chives
1 clove garlic, minced, or mashed in seasalt, OR 4-5 garlic buds

Peanut Chile Dressing

1/4 cup roasted peanut oil
2 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce/tamari
3 garlic cloves, chopped, or 6 garlic buds
1/2 serrano chile, chopped
2 tbsp scallions, chopped

Fresh mint
Fresh cilantro or basil

This dressing is best served warm. Heat the peanut oil, add the garlic, and cook over medium-low until the garlic starts to sizzle, turn down the heat to low, add the rice vinegar, the soy sauce, the chile and the scallions, and simmer until the sauce begins to slightly thicken. Pour over chopped napa cabbage with spears of cooked asparagus, add the chopped fresh herbs, and finish with chopped peanuts or cashews or toasted sesame seeds.

Parmesan-Balsamic Dressing - good on hardy romaine

1 garlic clove, mashed with coarse sea salt, or 3-4 garlic buds
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup olive oil
Fresh basil, chopped/torn into small pieces

Curry Vinaigrette - good on warm lentils or a grain salad

1 garlic clove, mashed with salt, or 3-4 garlic buds
2 tbsp whole fat yogurt or low fat mayo
2 tsp curry powder (best with fresh curry powder from a spice store or indian bazaar)
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
5 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp fresh cilantro/mint/parsley, chopped

I make this in a mason jar or a small jam jar and shake until all the ingredient are absorbed and the dairy has been fully broken down. I then toss on the legumes or grains and add the fresh herbs.

Green Living Online Best Food Blogs

I just wanted to say Thank You to Lindsay Evans, food writer at Green Living Online, who placed Edible Tulip on her list of Best Food Blogs. There is a myriad of excellent online food writing out there and I am grateful that she stopped by here and enjoyed what she found. I am honoured to be in such good company. Although I have been keeping this blog for more than four years now, I am still always surprised that anybody reads it. There was one gentleman at the early stages who used to write and give me photography tips. Looking back, it was clear I needed them. I used automatic flash on every picture. He also used to write to me when I disappeared for a while, if weeks, or months, or longer, passed and I didn't post. It was comforting in a way. Like an online therapist who knows all your inner thoughts from the nuances and unwritten subtleties of the blog. I remember back then, in the fall of 2004, my world was splintering into tiny shards and each one was taking turns scratching out my heart, he wrote to me, and I wrote him back. We didn't talk about what was happening but he checked in on me and I look back on that time both with awe that I survived the wreckage of it all and that the kindness of a total stranger's small gestures helped. I was approached recently, like many of you other food bloggers, by a woman from Cambridge who is doing her Masters thesis on food, blogging, and values. She is a sociologist she told me she was primarily interested in what motivates people to blog about food as well as how people assign and cultivate social values, relationships, and identities around food. I didn't respond at first. Her initial email required a second step, linking to a consent form, and then filling out a survey, so I probably put a red follow up flag beside it but a few days later the email and the red flag had moved to page two and out of sight. I am definitely an out of sight, out of mind kind of girl. She persisted. I acquiesced and wrote to her that I consider food blogging a 21st century idea for an age-old practice, i.e. recipe sharing, which goes back to way before medieval times, to the practice of oral culture (or if you're religious when Eve gave Adam the apple asking :do you think it's too tart for pie?) Anyway, she wrote me back and said "You know, you are the first person who made the connection with your food blog to recipe sharing". I still scratch my head. Why, then, do other food bloggers peddle their concoctions if not to share a recipe? 

Reflections on My Year, on Spring, on Raw Soul, on Walking Into Trees

Pictures taken at the Arboretum in Collingwood, Ontario on May 7, 2009.

I have spent a few hours of each day for the past 270 days, give or take a few, wandering around some random acreage that runs along the south shoreline of Georgian Bay. I'll take this moment of silence to say R.I.P. baby squirrel, adult squirrel, and notorious beaver. I hope there aren't more stamped with your fateful destination, i.e. my dog's jaws. Groundhogs, on the other hand, are supposedly infamously STUPID but they continue to tease and then deke Simon the dog out by disappearing down into their deeply dug tunnels as fast as if a mallet had snapped down. I will officially be moving in about 12 days and although the loneliness and isolation and suffocating void of the past few months has felt interminable, I feel the sad tug of severing it. I mean, rationally, it's clear I need to move back to the city: to work and make a living; to socialize and have a life; to engage on a deeper more meaningful level with a community and society at large. But these months of solitary winter pilgrimages and meadow meanderings and beach hikes and basically walking around or driving the countryside looking for a dirt path, an opening in the forest, a crack of light that whispered "come" have had their purpose. Goofy maybe but flipping it over and looking at it backwards now the moments have been full of grace. Meaning revealed itself in the preciseness of the present. There was no flair, no real commerce, no flashy stimuli, not even exaggerated dreamscapes in technicolour. My entertainment came from seeing my dog know how to get back to our house even if I took a zillion different directions on our walk. Watching him grow and begin to reward himself through discipline. It came from tilting my head back and tasting falling snowflakes on a tundra 7 foot deep in snow with arctic winds screaming off the Bay. My cheeks all winter had tiny slits of cut skin from walking north into ice pellets fleeing from all the forgotten parts of the country. Be afraid. The ground can eat you whole. There were moments on those walks that I became so tired in the deep snow that I felt like I knew a wee bit about what it would be like to fall over into its powdered embrace and just sleep. Free me from the curtain of gray. I cannot see out. There were moments on those days, and those days were many, that I might as well have been an eskimo on an ice floe. There was nobody around for miles to see. I should have bought flares. The inimitable dollar store in town probably even had them, drats!!

It would be fair to say I am prone to flights of compulsion in spring: the morning air, the way the sky darkens at twilight, the still of the night shrapnelled by the explosion of bird chatter and the cacophony of frogs. I admit I know how they feel. I am also compelled to shriek like a madwomen seeking conversation at anyone who passes by my front porch. I too have come out of hibernation. I would not call myself a sentimental creature. I do not cry easily. A sappy movie tends more to irritate me with its cloying attempt at fairytale narration than to affect me on some deep level. There have been times when my emotions have felt congealed, unable to seep out in appropriate amounts. I have wondered. But spring always tears me down, reduces me to feeling awe between blinks.

++++++++

I am so moved.

++++++++

By everything.

The snail slithers away antennae up waving at the world under foot. The creature's odds are 1 in 100 of being stamped out but on it goes. Fear is the beginning of the end of reason for humans. It grips us so tightly we have lost our sense of the now.

I got hit, or rather, I walked in to a tree limb, heavy and swung and jagged, with such force (I walk fast) that it knocked me off my feet, perhaps even knocked me out for a few seconds, and the run-in left a big gash on my forehead. In that moment, I thought of all the preventative things I do in my life to live forever, and all the things I am looking forward to, that are still beyond, down the road, tomorrow, next month, when I'm 55, and all the things that kept me up, tossing, and turning, with worry, the night before, and I had this sense that I was going to be taken down for good by a tree.

Wouldn't that have been something.

Spring Backyard Harvest: Asparagus, Rhubarb, Mint and What To Do With Each of Them

One of the awesome things about sifting through all the mulch in a garden that you don't know is the treasures that lie in wait for you. We moved to this big old century former-baptist-manse house last August. The lawn couldn't really be called a lawn. It was dried up dying patches of flailing grass sort of fighting for survival amidst a desert of dirt. The gardens had been so unkempt for so many years and the grass was knee high in the back yard and it was the thick of August when the crickets never shut up and the weeds twist and shout in a last rhapsody and everything is tall and wild and overgrown and tangled. The air was sweet with pollen and overgrowth. I let everything go and be just as it was thinking next spring I'll tackle this insanity. August is the only month in Ontario that I ever feel like I'm living in the jungle.

So I was out with my bare hands the past few days digging away straws of old growth from last season, trying to decipher the weeds from the goods before madness takes over and they become one. There were your usual suspects out front: tulips (but PINK? why pink?), a few varieties of daffodils (baby ones, yellow ones, mixed yellow and white ones...), hyacinthes (well, I love these cut and in a glass jar fresh from the flower market, but in a garden I think they just look phony), and tall irises are blooming alongside the driveway. So as I bent and I dug and I pulled away the sheathe of winter armour, I found a few surprises: mint (it really has to be the most hardy herb ever - growing out of the asphalt in the driveway?), rhubarb, and asparagus.

So, well I love rhubarb, and I ate it raw as a kid, I don't know what to do with it. It seems so fussy. Although, that said, I do know that to prepare a simple stew of rhubarb takes only the following tasks: wash the stalks and chop them into short lengths, add to a heavy based pan with sugar (linked recipe has details), and cook, over low heat, stirring constantly. Let me know how it goes. My mother came by today to walk the dogs together so we pulled out stalks and she'll stew it with apples and serve it over vanilla icecream. The tanginess of rhubarb, I admit, is absolutely impossible to match. Here is a recipe for stewed rhubarb from the very early days of my blog, my golly, back in 2004. Funnily enough, or not, back then, I was ALSO living in a cabin in the country and I was also marveling at the wonders of an unknown garden coming into being before my own eyes. If only I knew then what I know now about how that fateful summer would play out. I am however pleased beyond reason that for all the dips and turns and after four long years of office work in Toronto I somehow found my way back up north, right back in the same transcendental valley, alongside a waterway that connects me back to that very place 365 days times 4.75. So this plot may be a new rhubarb altogether but it's brought me full circle.

I was a bit shocked to see TWO (yes, only two, but I see more coming through the earth) thick and ready stalks of asparagus pulling through the earth and reaching high. They, like anything really, taste best when eaten the day they are snapped off their root. If you happen to have a bunch of thick fresh asparagus spears then by all means cook them quickly, in a large frying pan of water brought to the boil. They will change colour, to a deep green, fairly quickly. Test repeatedly until you like their doneness. Serve with a brown butter, a scattering of roasted chopped hazelnuts or a strong mustardy hollandaise. If you are serving grilled fish, then cook your asparagus last and simply toss with a very garlicky vinaigrette. Side with some buttered/chived baby potatoes. Here I wrote about the history of asparagus and included a recipe for Salsa Verde which is I had forgotten delicious served over top steaming asparagus spears.

Clearly mint really romps. It's climbed the side of the house and it's growing in the driveway in any crevice the pavement cracks open to allow air and sunlight. I have loved being able to pluck a few sprigs for lunch but it's also delicious added to yogurt, garlic and a seeded chopped cucumber to side with grilled chicken. If you're not that into cooking then mint goes with a trillion spring cocktails. If you're crafty, I'm not particularly, but this is easy enough, then freeze mint leaves in ice cube trays with water and add to cool summer drinks. And in this recipe from many years back I wrote about tossing mint with fresh strawberries and a bit of lemon juice and sugar. Strawberries are, of course, not yet in season in Ontario. Heck, we're not even in the heart of spring yet, but mint would also be excellent with a just ripe mango and some feta cheese and a drizzle of lime juice.

The Health Benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar and a Vinaigrette for Potato Salad

I'm not a huge fan of apple cider, warm or cold, so I stayed away from the cider vinegars that I used to see at the bulk store and the health food store. I think the reasoning behind my buying some for the first time many years ago was the retro glass jug it came in (not the one pictured above), sort of like a magician's apothecary vessel holding misting potion, AND the cheap price (I believe $2.99 for 3L) for something natural, aged in wood, unpasteurized and naturally fermented. Who could resist the temptation?

Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) soon became a regular in my ever growing assortment of vinegars and oils. I liked the tangy almost harsh taste; it has none of the sweetness of a balsamic vinegar. I think it's more like a wine vinegar, slightly fruity with musk tones. I actually bought this particular batch for my dog, Simon. I feed him a raw food dinner and the apple cider vinegar is supposed to have numerous pet benefits: adding it to raw ground beef reduces any bacteria the meat may contain; it is also a natural flea preventative and it makes coats shiny and healthy.

ACV is an age-old folk remedy for a staggering away of common ailments: pet and environmental allergies; high cholesterol; sinus infections; the flu; chronic fatigue; candida; sore throats; itchy dry skin conditions like dermatitis; and even arthritis (helps the last one in animals too). I wondered how ACV could be a positive medicine for candida when typically you are encouraged to avoid alcohol and acid during a high yeast growth period because it kills off the good bacteria. Over on the website Earth Clinic Folk Remedies I found an explanation: "Apple Cider Vinegar in itself is alkaline because of its "ash" content, which means if the apple cider vinegar was burned, what is left over becomes ash. When you check for the pH of that ash and dissolve it with water, the content is alkaline. Whenever our body digests anything, it undergoes oxidation, which is similar to burning and the end result is that you can determine whether the end product was alkaline or acid. Apple Cider Vinegar has anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties, primarily coming from the malic acid and acetic acid portion of the vinegar. Apple cider vinegar acts as a buffer in the body because the acetic acid reacts with base or acid compounds to form an acetate, therefore rendering them chemically bioavailable for the body's utilization. Additionally, Apple Cider Vinegar can reduce the toxicity of certain compounds by converting the toxin into an acetate compound, which is less toxic. This is why they are ideal for insect bites and certain skin allergies. While Apple Cider vinegar in itself is considered alkaline, a chemically pure vinegar (acetic acid) is neither acid nor basic forming as it leaves no ash as the entire portion, when burned evaporates completely".

Potato Salad with Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
3 large garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons capers, rinsed, drained and chopped
1 tablespoon each fresh marjoram and fresh thyme, chopped

As far as the potato salad goes, you can prepare it however you like. For this very basic picnic table potato salad dish, I simply boil 3 pounds of small red skinned potatoes until they break apart when pierced with a fork. I drain them, place them in a large ceramic platter, and coat with the dressing while they are still warm/hot. The ACV seems like a high ration with the olive oil (i.e. half to half) but because it gets soaked into the potatoes, it seems less vinegary and instead adds a welcome punch. I chop up some red onion and toss that in to. The fresh herbs carry the rest of it. 

Natural Plant-Based Household Cleaning Products (And Good Ol' Vinegar and Baking Soda)

I stopped being dependent on chemical-based products for my body a long time ago. I use a natural deodorant (crystal roll on; lemon verbena stick; Burts Bees spray on, to name a few) and sure it doesn't work as well as a name brand anti-perspirant chock full of aluminum and a whole bunch of other ingredients you probably can't pronounce but then again sweating is part of the human condition. It's natures way of releasing toxins from our system. It's why you can smell booze or garlic if you've had a little too much of either the night before. And frankly, I'd rather smell like my self than baby powder blended with a heavy dose of musk. I've always been sensitive to smells and to chemicals, and in many ways I'm thankful for that. In addition to becoming allergic to my bed sheets when I used a chemical based laundry detergent, my sensitivity was also almost the determining factor in a relationship break up. I was picked up for my birthday dinner in a freshly cleaned car that had been sprayed with air freshener. In my books, that's a mood killer when you're tryiing to talk while feeling as though someone's grandmother wearing too much of her talc powder is sitting on your face. I do love the smell of lily of the valley, of wet ferns, of fresh cut grass, of AIR in general, but I don't like reproductions of those smells, created with chemicals and packaged up in aerosol containers. After a few bad headaches following cleaning the bathtub, I decided to stop buying store bought name brand chemical household cleaners. Not only do they smell awful, there are poison warnings plastered all over the bottles. And often enough they tell you that a specific cleaner that's okay for a kitchen counter should not be used on natural marble, wood, fabrics, and painted surfaces. Hmmm, why? Because the cleanser is so potent it will peel paint? I started using plain old white vinegar mixed 1 part to 3 parts tap water just like they did 50 years ago. I use it on everything, everywhere, instead of a lysol or a multi-purpose windex. It does smell vinegary when you first spray it but when it dries it loses all scent. In addition to the vinegar/water homemade solution (you can get a large jug of vinegar for about $1.99!), I use two other cleaning products: an all natural fruit and veggie spray made of palm oil, cellulose gum and witch hazel which I soak the produce in for 10 minutes in cold water in the sink. In other words it takes a natural cleanser to work off the pesticides, i.e. chemicals, that cover my food. And an all purpose plant-based natural SOAP which I use on everything - to clean the kitchen sink, as a shampoo for my dog, to wash my hands, to mop the floor. The one pictured above is a Whole Foods brand and I think it cost about $2.99. It uses organic lemon essential oils, chamomile, white tea, aloe vera, and a certified organic coconut cleansing complex which creates a great sudsy soap. Why wouldn't everyone prefer to use NATURE instead of synthetic fragrances and irritating sodium lauryl sulfites. And for an exfoliant when you have those extra tough stains like RED WINE on white counter tops, don't grab the extra strength bug killer/stain remover, sprinkle some baking soda on top, let sit, scrub. Bet it's gone! I'd love to hear any tips you might have, or natural cleaning methods you've randomly discovered, or invented, or have been passed down in your family.

Here's a piece from CBC Marketplace that explains why household cleaners fall under the Hazardous Products Act. As a little preview, this is how much producers of toxic products care about the well being of their consumers over a little profit: "We wanted to ask Health Canada about its role and some of the concerns raised in this story, but they refused repeated requests for an on-camera interview. The manufacturers of Lysol, Clorox and Pledge all said they were unavailable for an interview and so did their trade association."

p.s. I was about to toss the ceramic toothbrush holder also in the picture above that I got at the local Dollar Store. It was when my boyfriend lived here and we both used handheld manual toothbrushes and the wooden toothbrush affixed permanently to the bathroom wall was made of wood and beginning to rot. Plus, who knows who has used that toothbrush holder before we moved in. Ew. Anyway, this toothbrush holder didn't work that well either. The spittle deposits in the bottom of it and it becomes sludgy pretty quickly. Plus my boyfriend moved out and I switched back to an electric tootbrush. Then it rained yesterday and soaked all the spring flowers beginning to bloom in the front garden so I pinched at the base of the stem a few of the delicate ones keeling over from the heavy rain and brought them inside and looked around for something to put them in and lo and behold the toothbrush holder works perfectly. It holds about 1/2 inch of water in the base and it has 6 open squares for putting in a flower stem. Why not look around your house or your apt and find an item that can be used for something other than its intended purpose. Let me know what you find!