Edible Tulip

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.

Red-Curry Crusted White Fish with Cucumber Lemongrass Salsa adapted from Canyon Ranch`s Cookbook: NOURISH

At some point in the upcoming weeks I would like to do something interactive with recipes from this new beautiful cookbook I just received so that others may glean some inspiration from what the book refers to as "indulgently healthy cuisine". I am all too often disappointed when I buy a cookbook. I have many that sit on a shelf in the kitchen with nary a recipe ever tested. But when I received this cookbook I immediate set myself up with a stack of orange and green and pink and yellow page flag post it notes and now the cookbook looks like a lit up sparkler - flashes of colour darting out at every angle. (And I only went through the salads, sides and fish chapters.)

Good Friday supper turned out a wee bit different than I had hoped, but then again, it's been a regular see-saw of misplaced expectations and tsunami-sized disappointments. It has also been one of the strangest 8 months of my life. Strange as in insular, remote, cut off from social and societal fulfillment and validation, and at the same time ending a long term relationship (slowly, painfully, abusively, sadly, gleefully) AND being in close enough proximity to my parents that a friday night usually resulted in joining them at the town hall for some keg beer and a hootenany concert. As I said, it's all been very strange. I've also never had so much time on my hands for such an extended period but been unable to cope with the void, the vacuity of meaning when it doesn't matter what day of the week it is, or the heightened sense of self that results with too much introspection blotted out a few hours later by the absolute diminished sense of self that also results from too much introspection. Give me a schedule. I never thought I'd want a routine back. But I do. I'm sure you have the things you do each day not quite realizing the significance of each single act. I miss the camraderie of having office mates cum on-call therapists/neck massagers/stylists/relationship advisers for whom I could be all the same things in return.

The weirdness is about to end. Or at least new weirdness is on its way in, turning the corner in step with these early days of spring. I am currently whistling in the last breaths of country air. I have moving boxes piled all around me so I can prepare for my 8th move in 7 years. Sigh. Yawn. A little whitefish was sort of what I needed.

I had bought enough fish for two, but as I wrote, Good Friday turned out to be different than I thought, so I ended up cooking for one, but sticking to my recipe plans, and tossing the fish leftovers into the salsa and spooning onto romaine lettuce leaves the next day for lunch. Wonderful. 

I blended two different recipes and sort of made up the rub by mixing red curry paste from a jar with a dollop of Russian honey mustard. I have no idea why I thought these two flavours would meld well together and I can't say they did because the flavour wasn't distinct enough. In fact, I wouldn't have wanted to put more than 2 tsp of curry paste on my filet because it would have been too overwhelming but it didn't particularly stand out as identifiable. The salsa was very tasty, a perfect balance of lemongrass freshness with salty tamari and a blast of fresh mint. The fish sat atop a vegetable blend of julienned carrots and peppers that had been gently sauted.

The following recipes serve 2, or 1 plus leftovers.

Broiled Red Curry Crusted White Fish

Two 4-ounce whitefish (salmon could work) filets

2 teaspoons red curry past

Preheat oven to 400F. Rub the filets with 1 tsp red curry paste. Lightly coat a large saute pan with canola oil spray. Sear the fish for 1 minute on each side over medium-high heat. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the fish is opaque at the centre, and flakes easily with a fork.  

Cucumber Lemongrass Salsa

1 cup peeled, diced English cucumber

1/2 tablespoon finely minced fresh lemongrass

1/2 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 tablespoon tamari sauce/soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside or refrigerate until ready to serve.

Rainbow Vegetable Saute

1 teaspoon virgin olive oil

1/2 cup julienned carrots

1/4 cup each julienned red, yellow and orange peppers

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Saute the vegetables in the olive oil over medium heat until they begin to wilt and are just cooked through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

How Do You Make Tuna Fish Salad?

I'd love to get some feedback on this topic. For the most part, when I eat tuna, it's the Italian tuna fish in fillets stored in a glass jar in oil with pepperoncini. It tastes rich and salty and if you can't make it to the seashore then this is the cheapest and tastiest alternative. A few dried cured black olives, diced fresh tomato, tossed with crispy head lettuce and topped with black pepper and it's lunch. But sometimes, I crave the kind of tuna fish salad my mother used to make and serve on white bread without crusts. I take a jar, or two, of chunk light tuna in water, drain them, and flake the tuna out into a large bowl. I add a tablespoon of whole fat plain yogurt, a teaspoon of mayo, and a 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard. I cream everything together and add salt and freshly ground pepper. I then put a mound on top of a nest of lettuce and top with the tomatoes and olives. Bread and feta in olive oil are nice additions.

This is all very well and fine but surely there are other ways to prepare tuna, more interesting variations (wasabi? tapenade?), or some wonderful traditional ways that you enjoyed in your family or childhood. I'd love to hear them.

Roast Chicken with Vegetables

 

My mother had gone away on her annual November pilgrimage to a hot spring nestled in a volcanic valley in the Primavera region of Mexico. I offered to cook my dad dinner one night during the week of her absence. It was a chance for us to spend some father/daughter time together and it was an excuse for me to be able to enjoy a hot, skin-burning wood fire and shed my dreaded snow pants.

It seems logical that I would have prepared some straightforward meal that he enjoys so much, say, a stewed tomato pasta sauce with sausage, or at least something I have cooked and eaten a dozen times. But instead, I decided to cook something untried, but strangely alluring. I decided to do a roast chicken with root vegetables. Forget that I have never in my life cooked a roast bird, it was something I have been meaning to tackle. And if it meant having to face the dreaded gizzards or innards or neck of a dead chicken then that is what I would have to do.

To leap to the end of this tale, in case you don't get there, the chicken cooked perfectly, and the vegetables were tender but firm. I have only two upfront pieces of advice: Check the cooking time in ADVANCE of preparing your meal and planning your evening (a chicken can take 2 hours in the oven) and think about cooking the chicken for an hour by itself before adding the vegetables for the last hour - most of the fat will cook out by then and you can drain it before adding the vegetables. After the chicken had cooked for an hour, I put it on a piece of foil that I wrapped around the underside of the bird, in the middle of the vegetables, and cooked it for another hour. The meat and the vegetables were perfectly done.

I brought with me to dinner a 5-pound organic chicken, 2 turnips, 1 parsnip, a bag of mixed coloured carrots (white, orange and purple), a head of garlic, 3 branches of fresh rosemary, 1/2 a fennel bulb, and 2 lemons. The rosemary and the lemons I used to stuff the cavity, which luckily for me was unbarricaded. The neck was cut down and there didn't seem to be any insides to deal with. The recipe that follows is very loosely adapted from the Joy of Cooking 75th Anniversary cookbook. 

Thai Catfish & Shrimp Curry

 

I mean there's only so much winter squash and turnips and parsnips I can eat even though it's fall and the abundance is obvious and everywhere and self righteously tapping me on my left shoulder "eat me, I'm local". (hm, well, there's a new line).

Anyway. After a warm and sunfilled day that felt like more like the dawn of spring than the tragic fall into November (my least favourite month of the entire calendar), I was done with root vegetables. Give me something tangy, spicy, evocative of far away pulses. So I cooked a fish curry.

There is a great wholesale fish store near us (Ontario Fisheries Products) and since we had spent the afternoon walking the shell riddled sands of Wasaga Beach with the dog it was on the way home, we swung in to see what was behind their glass counters. The fish is fresh, filleted, and dead. Exactly how I like it. I tear up at the large Asian grocery stores and fishmarkets where the tanks are filthy and algae ridden and 150 live crabs piled 6 deep are unwittingly poking their neighbour's eye out. Or you see a 2 foot eel forcibly coiled up in a bucket. I eat fish. I eat meat. I was a vegetarian for 17 years but my B12 levels were so low I actually, out of physical need, began craving meat. A shock to my entire family since even as a 3 year old I ate meat as though I was being forced to drink blood from a sacrificial cow's jugular. I am not righteous now about the meat and fish eating crowd, as I am now part of them. I just think it's nice, wise and humane, to at least try to get your meat and fish from respectable places who give a damn.

So there was lots there but only 2 local choices (the Tilapia came from Honduras of all places!) that were wild and in no way endangered - pickeral from Georgian Bay and Catfish from Lake Erie. We got a large fillet of catfish (which we were told tasted like chicken) for that night's curry dish. I also returned the next day to buy 2 fillets of pickeral to take to my parents. Note that the fisheries is only open to the public 2 days a week - Fridays and Saturdays from 9 - 5. It's good to call ahead to make a special request/order if it's something you are really counting on.

Since I make up my recipes as I go along, many times injudiciously subsituting ingredients, and often basically using whatever I have vegetable wise in the fridge, this is a bit of a mock up on how the curry was created.

Recipe follows.

Chicken Tikka Masala; a Cabbage Carrot Saute; Potato Stir-Fry; Coconut Snow Pea and Bok Choy Side -- Indian Night!

 

Not sure which part of my personality begs the over-achiever to rear up (middle child syndrome STILL?!?) but anyway I set myself up for ridiculous tasks sometimes. The idea seems intriguing. Challenging even, but always easily overcome in thought. But often when I begin the task I've enunciated out loud I feel so burdened, even angry, and all at myself, mostly pissed off that I can't just sit on a couch for an evening and eat a non proper meal and do nothing. I'm just not sure how much of my rigid upbringing around food, formality, getting dressed up for dinner (I'll almost always still change for dinner, put on lipstick, tie up my hair, etc.), selecting wine, prepping, lighting candles, even when I'm alone for god's sake. It is what I do to complete my day, to celebrate the evening, oh how I love the fall of dusk, the welcome quiet, the silent and thoughtful company of lamp light, and those first absolutely indulgent sips of wine. It's quiet here. We're still getting used to living in a smallish town. The crickets are still here and yet the coyotes have also arrived. Ten years ago a glass of absinthe, a mattress somewhere in Paris or Moscow, a typewriter, the constant sensation of feeling drunk on nicotine and soothed by booze, ravaging a loaf of bread, was all pretty much in an evening. Now I like a "family" meal. Even if there's just two of us. Or one of us. (My dog is also a perfectly good dining companion.)

So at 7 pm, I decided to start cooking my Indian meal, 4 dishes, from scratch. Granted, I had all the ingredients. The meal would consiste of a Chicken Tikka Masala, a Cabbage and Carrot Saute with Cumin and Lime, a Potato Stir Fry with Ground Coriander and Mint, and an improved Snow Pea and Bok Choy Side Dish based on a Green Bean and Coconut Recipe but in fact it was nothing like it (the grocery store was out of green beans, I brought home shredded coconut but could not convince myself to add it to the bok choy.) As you can see above, it turned out nicely. Everything came out suprisingly authentic Indian tasting, if perhaps more subtle, and less overtly saucy or heavy on the ghee. My boyfriend is now wowed by my multi-tasking, prioritizing, efficiency. That is, until I turn it towards home projects.

Grilled Five-Spice Chicken with Fresh Corn Saute

In my family of five, we had different food preferences growing up that still influence how we cook and the food and flavours we most enjoy. My older sister's food of choice is Mexican (my younger brother's falls along the line of "if anyone else cooks something, it's my food of choice!" She lives in Belgium so it's a bit of an issue for her when she gets cravings. My mother went over to Brussels to visit her grandchildren and all my sister requested from Canada were cans of blackbeans. After living in both Mexico and Guatemala, she fell in love with their way of life, their generosity of spirit, and their food. I went to Mexico and the first thing I noticed in the sprawling, sweltering city of Guadalajara where I lived was that everyone, including the men, were 5 inches shorter than me. And as a rigid vegetarian at the time, I balked at how much meat there was, seemingly tucked into every cavity possible. I ate lunch out at a fancy restaurant one afternoon in the historic square and ordered a dish that had the word verde in its title (meaning green); it turned out to be a sort of pasta stuffed with the most toxic smelling chicken I have ever had the displeasure of being close to. The sauce was a messy take on gravy and there was nothing green or fresh about any of it. I took one bite, out of politeness, and almost fainted at the effort it took to swallow. Someone at the table took pity on me as I swirled and swirled my food around the plate, cutting bits of the poultry log and then putting it aside, dipping it in the sauce and putting it down, and she offered me a section of her quesadilla. I took a few big, gleeful bites before I noticed the maggot waving its eyeless head at me from a fold of melted cheese. About the only thing I'll have out at a restaurant now in Mexico is a margerita.

My parents love Italian and French food which is just too much bread, pasta, and meat for my fiery palette. I favour sour and tangy and hot. Southeast Asian food is a natural choice because of its fresh intensities of herbal flavours, its spice, its heat, and lack of processed flour. Here's a dinner that my boyfriend who has more traditional tastes adored and which had enough strong Asian accents to please me. It's a super easy and fast dinner to make.

Chinese Five Spice can be bought at any ethnic grocery store, spice shop, natural/bulk/health food store or in Toronto at St. Lawrence Market or Kensington Market. It contains a traditional blend of spices commonly used in Chinese cooking, listed in the order of potency: cinnamon, star anise, fennel, ginger, cloves, white pepper, licorice.

Grilled Five-Spice Chicken Thighs with Soy Dipping Sauce

Serves four to six

2 Tbsp Chinese five-spice powder 1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp dark brown sugar 1 tsp garlic powder 3/4 tsp salt 2 Tbsp soy sauce 2 tsp rice vinegar 1 tsp sesame oil 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes 2 1/2 lb. boneless skinless chicken thighs (I used 4 bone-in chicken quarters and just pulled the skin off and trimmed the fat) 2 Tbsp vegetable oil, more for oiling the grill 3 Tbsp chopped cilantro (1 Tbsp was plenty)

Mix the five-spice powder, 1 Tbsp of the brown sugar, the garlic powder, and the salt in a small bowl. In another small bowl, make the dipping sauce: mix the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, and remaining 1 tsp sugar.

Place the chicken in shallow pan, drizzle with the vegetable oil, and toss to coat evenly. Sprinkle the spice mixture over the chicken; toss and rub to coat thoroughly.

Heat the barbecue to medium high for 10 minutes, then take a paper towel soaked in olive oil and lubricate the grill. Put the chicken on the grill and cook uncovered on one side until it has dark grill marks, about 6-7 minutes. Turn and continue to grill until the other side is well marked, another 5-6 minutes. Continue cooking until level of doneness is achieved.

Move the thighs to a serving dish, and drizzle with the soy mixture, then sprinkle with the chopped cilantro and toss to coat.

Corn, Sweet Onion and Zucchini Saute with Cilantro (the recipe called for mint; we replaced it with fresh coriander)

Serves 4 (in reality, it served 2 with a few taste test bites and a bit leftover to mix with salad for next day's lunch)

2 Tbsp unsalted butter 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 1/2 cups small diced sweet onion, such as vidalia (I used a sweet tasting white onion from a road side stand) 1 tsp sea salt (I used Paludier's Fleur de Sel de Guerande) 1 1/4 cups small diced zucchini (about 1 medium zucchini) 2 heaping cups of fresh corn kernals (about 4 medium ears of corn) 2 tsp chopped fresh garlic 1/2 scotch bonnet pepper, minced 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 2 to 3 Tbsp chopped mint or cilantro 1/2 lemon Freshly ground black pepper

Melt 1 Tbsp of the butter with the olive oil in a saute pan or Dutch oven over medium low heat. Add the onions and a sprinkle of the salt, cover nad cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Uncover, raise the heat to medium, and continue cooking until the onions become light golden, and lose most of their water, about another 3 to 4 minutes. Add the remaining Tbsp of butter and the zucchini. Cook until the zucchini is near-tender. Add the corn, garlic, minced scotch bonnet, and a few pinches of salt. Cook, stirring frequently, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon (to avoid the starchiness of the corn sticking), for about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the cumin and the coriander and cook, stirring, for about 30 seconds. Remove from heat. Add the cilantro/mint, a good squeeze of the lemon, and a few good grinds of pepper. Let sit for a few minutes and stir again, scraping up the bottom of the pan. Season with more salt, pepper or lemon, to taste. Serve warm.

Is that a WORM in my quesadilla? My Mexican Adventure

During my trip to the spa, Rio Caliente, we took a day trip to Guadalajara to go to the local Mercado and also to visit Tlaquepaque, a suburb of the main centre of Guadalajara, and a virtual haven for folk art and dining. It's a small town feel with long corridors of cobbled roads blocked off to traffic and behind each structural facade lies a courtyard full of artisanal works. The roads lead to the central square with a bandstand, a cathedral, and verdant grounds full of wrought iron decorative park benches. The shops for the most part carried high end items - crystal, large pieces of exquisitely made furniture and furnishings, 4 foot candles - but you could find smaller crafts to take home as souvenirs: I came away with two carved and painted dangling skeletons (in honour of Day of the Day) and three pressed tin decorative mirrors to hang on a wall.

The area is also known for its sidewalk cafes. I was with a group who chose to return to the restaurant they had visited the year before. We entered into the cavernous and colourful restaurant entrance and walked across a sunlit courtyard past the large fountain and iron table and chairs to a shady area under a bamboo woven roof where we sat around a large table. I've been anxious to find good Mexican, here in Toronto, there in Mexico, and I'm sad to report I'm still looking. The food was fairly awful. At the spa, I had been eating fruits, vegetables, and a few grains, for a week. When I saw the menu here at the restaurant I chose the Enchillada Verde thinking it would be a cheese enchillada in a green sauce. Nope. It was a plate full of chicken stuffed into corn tortillas and covered in melted cheese. Not only would I be blocked up for a week if I dared to eat any of it I feared I would throw up from the smell of that chicken. I cut into one of the rolls hoping to see something green and leafy inside but it was just grey meat and lots of it and the smell that emanated was like a dog who had crawled under a porch the summer before to die and noone found him until the spring thaw. I'm quite certain it was not chicken in those enchilladas. I had one bite and that was enough. Someone down at the other end of the offered to share her quesadillas. They were a starter and her main had arrived and so she passed down the two squares that were left on her plate. I took one bite. One measly bite. All I wanted was a simple bite of melted cheese topped with some fresh salsa to get me through the afternoon so I could return to the spa and eat more sprouts and papaya. I took the bite and looked at the quesadilla as I chewed. There sitting perfectly like it was taking a nap in a hammock was this damn larvae.

It's bigger and grosser in person. You can see the sections of its body and all its fine hairs. You can also see sets of about 18 pairs of legs. This was a detox week at the spa. Good food and no alcohol. The cheese, the chicken and the worm did me in. I leaned over and shouted down to the only woman in the group who had ordered alcohol. She had a marguerita. It was happy hour. One equals two. Everyone at the table quickly whisked that second glass of cold tequila down my way.

Eating Chicken

After 14 years as a strict vegetarian, bordering on veganism, eating very little dairy and very little fish, I've suddenly embraced the meat lover within. This has not even been a conscious decision. I just CRAVED meat this summer. I was dating someone who loved meat, who talked about meat, and I started to want meat. One evening he arrived at my cabin late at night and cooked himself an omelette with cheese, fried potatoes and ham. I couldn't get enough. He fed me little forkfuls until I was saying: more, more, more. Then I was over to the other side.

I subsequently went to my parent's house for dinner and ate, ahem, lamb burgers! Delicious. Towards the end of the meal the only sound heard was my little voice "er, are you going to eat the rest of that lamb burger on your plate" to my mother, to my brother, to anyone. I wanted more.

Then when my boyfriend came for dinner the other week I made a delicious made-up recipe of stir fried vegetables and chicken strips served atop egg noodes. This is a loose recipe.

Egg noodles or rice

Bean sprouts
Slivered broccoli
Slivered carrots
Slivered red peppers
a bunch of chopped rapini

2 skinless boneless chicken breasts boiled in water for 10 minutes then cooled so they can be shredded easily with fingers and added to the mixture

A marinade of: tamari, sesame oil, chopped garlic, chopped ginger, a tiny bit of honey, vegetable oil, fresh lemon juice, a touch of tahini, salt and pepper and hot chile flakes

I can't stress that you can't make too much marinade. The vegetables can be stir fried in it and then the chicken is added and then as you top the noodles with the bounty add more marinade. Add more salt and pepper and even a bit of a lime pickle relish.

Serve in large Chinese bowls. Drink wine or Tsing Tao beer. Delicious! And heart warming.

Tonight after my first day back at the "office" I clicked in my heels along Bloor Street to the butcher and thought "whoever imagined". I couldn't be happier OR more satiated! (Or sated, I always get confused).

Barbecued Salmon

I live near the Ontario Fisheries Products which is a wholesale dealer of fish, fish and more fish: pike, halibut, haddock, pickeral, Georgian Bay freshwater fish, Atlantic salmon, arctic char, baby shrimp, picked fish, smoked fish, swordfish, Atlantic lobster and frozen fillets for convenience. They've been very good to me so that when I call on a Wednesday looking to pick up fish for 18 people that afternoon when they aren't even open to the public (that's a wholesaler day) they oblige, bone an enormous salmon fillet (or three) for me and have it all packed in ice ready for pick up. I highly recommend buying your fish from them if you visit the Collingwood area on weekends.

Now on to the fish. And barbecuing it. To be honest, I'd never barbecued anything in my life before I started cooking at this retreat centre. It frightened me. It reminded me of my barbecue set is better than your barbecue set rivalries that used to go on in the suburban town of Oakville where I grew up. It reminded me of aging white men in white pants drinking budweiser beer cooking sausages while watching the Masters Golf tournament through the sliding doors. This is ridiculously stereotypical I know. I had to combat those phobias however. That not only aging white men with white pants can barbecue. So I did it. I initiated myself by cooking FISH on a hot flame (nearing 700 F which was totally accidental and due to a tempermental barbecue) for almost 20 people. Lo and behold it turned out perfectly -- people raved, they told me even their husbands couldn't cook salmon this good, I was shocked. Partly I think it is due to the thickness of the fillets I use (between 2 - 3 inches in parts), the freshness of the fillets which produces a lot of oil which holds the moisture and the fact that I marinate after cooking so it seeps into the warm flesh.

I don't recommend bringing your gas stove up to the 700 F mark. I try to maintain the barbecue at 400 F but sometimes it doesn't behave. At 400 F it usually takes about 20 minutes for the salmon to cook through - the outer flesh is turning white, the inner flesh is nearing a paler pink and the very inside is still streaked with bright pink. This to me means it is done. Because by the time I close the barbecue lid and turn off the barbecue (and also the gas), the fish will continue to cook for a few minutes while I arrange all the other dishes on the buffet table. I put my fish fillet on a long piece of foil because I don't have a fish grill. My father does and it works very well. I do not cover my fish to poach it; I keep the top open to the elements of barbecuing because it imparts a slightly smoky flavour.

I dress my salmon in a simple vinaigrette and serve it with this sauce poured over top: 1 cup olive oil, juice of 3 lemons, 1/2 jar of capers plus juice, 2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill, salt and coarse ground pepper.

That charred looking thing in the top upper right of the photo is barbecued garlic. I didn't research it before doing it and I now know that perhaps I should have wrapped it in foil like I have done to roast garlic in the oven. This got excessively sticky and molten. I could still use the deep recesses of each clove but only enough to smear on a few toasted baguette slices which I then topped with a marinated grape tomato and fresh mint balsamic salsa.