HEADING INTO NEW CHALLENGES & SAYING FAREWELL TO SUMMER

The school children and their teachers are back in the classroom and the weather is giving them a little help: it’s grey and cool here in Toronto today. Do you remember that little pit of anxious anticipation when you were a kid? Do you remember wondering what you were going to wear on that first day? On the second question, I remember the details of only one year: what I wore to the first day of grade six, a favourite cotton dress of fresh green and white. Hard to understand why some memories stick…

This big turning point in the year is always so freighted with anticipations of all kinds and regrets about the end of summer’s long days and ease. Last night – the eve of the change - as I have in the past, I had friends over for supper. The youngest is headed into grade two, and was a little anxious, but fundamentally happy and fine. The eldest was headed to school today as a teacher. Several more start university responsibilities in a week or two. And the rest of us just reverberated, mostly privately, with memories and echoes of Labour Days past.

All this was against a backdrop, or perhaps I should say foreground, of delectables: slices of charcoal grilled pork; small grilled Pakistani-style sliders; mizuna salad, oh so fresh; sticky rice, a mix of black and white that was chewy and satisfying (I just had the rice leftovers for breakfast); a chopped mix of grilled tomatillos, eggplant, and onions that was terrific, an improvisation; sauteed shiitakes; sliced heirloom tomato; parboiled yellow beans in vinaigrette, unchopped so we could eat them one by one in our fingers; boiled potatoes cut into large wedges and wok-fried with a little sliced fennel in turmeric-tinted olive oil. There was a pause while my prebaked pate sucree crust was topped with chopped peaches (the last of summer probably), wild blueberries, a little sugar, and a small amount of yogurt-egg mixture scented with nutmeg and dried ginger and then baked at 375 to a custard-tart loveliness.

And then there it was, a farewell taste of summer fruit to send us on our way into the school year, the travel year, the work year…

Some new things to announce: The Burma book is now available as an E Book, and so are the three regional Asian cookbooks that I wrote with Jeffrey Alford. There’s a deal on in September for each of the three that I’ve been asked to tell you about. Here’s the link: ecookbook-club

My pre-approval for my visa to Iran has come through. I’m hoping to go look and eat and taste and photograph food and markets and people etc in the month of October. It is so exciting, and yes of course also a little anxiety-making, given the tensions in the region. I can’t wait. But if I get to go I won’t be posting anything for the time I am there. I’ll leave a laptop in Istanbul, where I’ll have some days at either end. And meantime I’m trying to figure out my packing needs etc. All advice welcome, especially anyone who has been recently and at this time of year. I know about the need for a manteau and headscarf, of course…

And before that there’s the Kneading Conference West ( kneadingconferencewest) from September 12 to 14, in the Skagit Valley in northern Washington State; the Stratford Food Fair called Savour Stratford on September 21 and 22, where I’ll be doing various talkings and demos etc (culinaryfestival) ; and on this coming weekend the Longhouse Food revival in Renselaarville NY (SW of Albany 35 miles or so (longhouse).

It really does feel like the end of summer ease and flexibility and the start of a new work year!

SPRINGTIME HAPPINESS AND FEASTING

It's a cloudy Easter Sunday here in Toronto. I'm just back in from my run, a longer leisurely one that's left me sweaty and happy. Funny how getting the blood moving usually gets the happiness current, the emotional qi, flowing too.

We had a celebratory supper last night, early because there was a small person E with us. The guys lit the Weber and we grilled bavette and then lamb, each drizzled with fish sauce and a little olive oil first. The lamb was in "steaks", cut from a leg, so there was a round of bone in the centre. It's a great cut, recommended to me by Dawnthebaker and her partner Ed. I'd also bought merguez from Sanagan's Meats. Those went on the grill and then we cut them up and dressed them with lime juice, fish sauce, and chopped shallots, making a kind of Thai salad, with mint leaves too, for colour and freshness.

I can imagine you thinking "that's a lot of meat!" Well, yes. Some of us like all of it; my kids don't love lamb, so the beef was aimed at them; and one friend can't eat chiles, so she had to skip the merguez. But we all had appetite.

As for the other elements: There was sticky rice, some black mixed in with the white so it was a lovely purplish handful, handy for scooping up a slice of lamb or beef or a piece of merguez with shallot. We oven-roasted beets and served them coarsely chopped, unpeeled. Jerusalem artichokes from QUebec roasted up quickly, and went out plain, looking like oddly shaped small potatoes. I made a sprout etc stir-fry, a made-up dish of chopped potato fried in mustard seed and turmeric oil and then joined by shiitake mushrooms from Ontario, and sprouted chickpeas and a new kind of sprouted seed combo now on the market here: fenugreek, lentils, and something else. It's a wonderful blend of soft (spud) and chewy, with great depth of flavour, especially when heightened with a splash of wine near the end.

At the sweet end, a friend D brought a chocolate pound cake she'd made with creme fraiche, that went quickly, thanks to the four twenty-somethings at the feast. Dawn had made a tart, a cross between cheesecake and custard, with ricotta, mascarpone? I think, and eggs. Delish. She put out a jar of poached apricots and we just balanced the fruit on the slice we were eating, each of us. It felt very sunny and Easter-renewal-ish that tart, and indeed the whole meal.

New sprouts, eggs, lamb, garlic chives from the garden that I chopped into a kumquat chutney, all these symbols of new life and springtime are heartening. But they'd have been a little sad and lonely if the weather had stayed as grim and chilly as it's been for most of April.

We got lucky yesterday though, with bright sun and temperatures at 19 or 20, T-shirt weather! I gardened in the back, cleaning up leaves and branches and packing them into recycle bags. It was too hot out there for clothing, so I worked in my jogging bra and pants, feeling the intense April sun beaming into me. Yes yes I need to be careful about UV on my skin, mustn't overdo it and all that. But oh the tonic of spring sun!

No wonder we had appetite last night for a good meal with friends and long discussions into the night. The other end of the evening came after midnight, when the Russian orthodox church down the street had its annual Easter Saturday procession: candles, priests in golden vestments, a huge crowd of people walking past carrying candles and icons and singing in Russian.. We stood by the edge of the road watching as they walked by, children and grandparents and everyone in between. Another year, another marker...

One of my kids asked me if I ever wished I believed so that I could take part in rituals like the one we were witnessing. "Not at all!" was my answer. It's remarkable to see people acting in concert, with an apparently common mind, but it is also at some level disturbing, don't you find? The coercion of the crowd is powerful and potentially very oppressive.

So, no thanks!

But a huge "YES" to spring and birdsong and short sleeves and bicycling, and children playing in the park, and strolling people chatting late at night in soft warmth.

Bring it on!

SIMPLE TECHNIQUES AND SIMPLE PLEASURES

It's late on a muggy Tuesday evening. No not muggy: Muggy is too negative a word for the soft warm air that bathes me as I sit here in Toronto writing. It's a word used by people who find this summer heat too aggressive and hard to live in. Winter cold is so chilling, and lowering to the spirits, at least by late February, that it seems unwise and in fact deeply ungrateful to complain about life-giving summer heat. Ah here she goes preaching again! you'll say.

Let's start again and say that it's a warm tropical-feeling evening here in Toronto!

Had another lovely time in Grey County last weekend, celebrating two seventy-fifth birthdays, one of a bookseller friend, and the other, on the same day, and at the same party, the birth of Penguin, the publisher. There was a Penguin motif at the birthday party and much pleasure and good conversation. And after, as I drove to a friend's place to overnight in peace and silence, there was time to reflect on the passage of time, on things taken for granted (publishing houses, long life) until they become fragile or threatened. As always, "in the moment" living is what we need, for sure. Enjoy the 75 year (or 25 year or 90 year...) marker, and try not to think too much about the number of years we do or do not have left.

Who knows? after all. So there's no point worrying about it, as I wrote last week. I am still working on cultivating a "so what?" looseness about eventualities. It sure has lightened my load, and added to the general happiness in my world.

And meantime I have begun to tweet. It's a wild world of haiku-like bursts, compressed thoughts, an anti-logorrhoea (sp?) tool! ( Prolixity is easier to spell...) A friend says it has led her to interesting information and people, quick connectedness with a large world.

On the subject of long and short: Longer distances beckon when I run in the morning these days. I'm loving it, but trying not to be too tempted into more kilometres. After all, I don't want to end up with knee or hip problems, and too much wear can sure lead there. On the other hand, what am I saving myself for?

It's the same balancing with money I think: Save it for a possibly long life? but who knows when it might get cut short? So why not enjoy the moment and worry about the money when the time comes, rather than ahead of time. it's an age-old issue and balancing act. The trick, the important thing, is not to get stressed about it. Just enjoy whatever decisions you make and live with them.

A friend said the other day 'Our job is to enjoy life, to be creative when we can, and otherwise to take good care of people and the earth and things generally.' It's not a bad basic code, don't you think?

Meantime, we need to eat, and the last few days have been fun: Had some amazing peach pie made by a friend up north, summer in a mouthful. I think it was a Crisco crust, but light and not soggy, the peaches perfect.

Last night, still on the yellow fruit theme, I used bright yellow tart plums to make a relish-chutney- salad. I would like to put it in the Burma book (saying clearly that I haven't eaten it there), for it's in the groove or style of the flavour palate, with minced shallots, some fish sauce and chiles, shallot oil used to heat and pop some mustard seed (a south Asian touch that gives a toasted depth) and... chopped mint or coriander leaves and salt. In any case it was great with grilled flat-iron steak, my new favorite cut. And on the grill went eggplants (long Asian ones) and shallots and garlic, for a mild, non-chile'd nam prik makeua. It was so smoky and flavorful, just way more than the sum of its parts.

Chile-garlic sauce, my favorite condiment from the Burma kitchen, with soaked dried red chiles, raw garlic, rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and fish sauce, as always had an important place on the table. I've doubled the recipe for the book, for why make a small quantity when it's getting eaten so quickly??

This evening I made an improvised salad of cooked chopped sweet potato, all beautiful colour and tender texture, tossed with cold cooked rice and fresh pea tendrils (the fine kind) and lots of minced herbs whisked into an olive oil vinaigrette. The mint and basil were from the garden, punchy and fresh. I should have put it in a purple bowl, to set off the glamorous orange of the sweet potato. It was a great pairing with grilled fresh sausages (pork with fennel seed and chiles) from Sanagan's (and again more of that chile-garlic sauce, yum!).

My charcoal grilling is getting very confident, at last. I'm working to use as little charcoal as possible. In Southeast Asia people are so skilled and economical with charcoal. It is another of those learn-it-over-a-long-time life-skills that I am happy to work on.

Simple IS good!