CANADA DAY BOUNTY & GENEROUS RAIN

It’s Canada Day here in Toronto, the anniversary of the day in 1867 when Canada became a Confederation with a Parliament etc.

The city is quiet, with very  little traffic (many people being up north at cottages, or away on holiday). Around noon there will be the twenty-one gun salute and other ceremonies in Queen’s Park, the gracefully old-tree-rich park behind the Provincial Parliament buildings. It’s  just a few blocks from my house. I headed out that way this morning for a quick pedal, hoping to get my blood moving and get home before the rain and thunder storms that had been promised for 10.30.

But I was waylaid as I entered the park by the sight of a woman in white cotton pants and top picking from a huge old cherry tree at the corner. Its blooms were stunning six weeks ago and now the cherries were hanging ripe and inviting, almost black, and mostly too high up to reach. I put my bike down on the grass, said hi, and the woman called out “there’s plenty right here; the other branches are too high”. And so we held down a the trailing leafy and berried end of a mighty branch with one hand each and with the other picked and ate cherries one by one. They were small (“smaller than last year” she told me, a touch of the Caribbean in her voice) and intensely flavoured, at once tart and sweet. It felt like the best kind of luxury, and a wonderful way to celebrate Canada Day, to be picking cherries right from the tree, chance-met strangers sharing bounty.

Tall people with strong ladders may well pick the rest, all too far from the ground for us to reach…and so a few minutes later I headed off. The breeze freshened, the sky was greyer, and colours glowed in the eerie pre-rain light. A friend called me on my cel as I headed up a leafy side-street. I stopped and stood over my bike to chat with her. But then I tried riding one-handed (getting on and off are the hardest things of course) as we chatted, and all was well until the first rain started pelting down. We agreed to talk later and I tucked my phone away, hoping it wouldn’t get soaked.

That ride home was almost as pleaurable as eating the cherries. The rain was warm, a gentle lukewarm shower, that sometimes turned into more emphatic pellets but was never chilling, more like a water massage. One guy was running down the street in a big hurry but everyone else I saw just kept walking unconcernedly under an umbrella, or else paused under a tree to take shelter.

The whole ride was a reminder, one way and another, of how precious trees are, a shelter, a food source, and a reassurance that life goes on.

Now I’m back home, changed into dry clothes, and sitting by an open door typing this (how freeing a laptop is!). As I think about trees and their place in our world, I’m reminded of the wonderful books by John Vaillant: The Golden Spruce (a story from Haida Gwai aka the Queen Charlotte Islands) and The Tiger. I heard him speak a few weeks ago at a PEN event and now am deep in his tale from far eastern Siberia, about the tiger who hunted men. The writing is wonderful, with generous-to-the-reader limpid sentences and images of great beauty. Somehow there’s no self-consciousness in his writing, no ‘see how lovely this sentence is!’ feeling. Highly recommended.

Speaking of books, I have to get back to work. Now that I’ve hit my stride and am immersed in my Persian World book project, the days feel too short, and my head is full of lists of what needs to be done next. That includes getting more recipes drafted and tested once or twice before I can send them to friends for more test-driving. (I like the idea of recipes being taken out for a spin, like a new car.) And it’s summer, the season of cherries and other fruits, so important in the cuisines of the region. I mustn’t waste the moment!

Happy Canada Day, and an early happy Fourth of July, to all.

EARLY JUNE INTENSITIES

Yesterday at lunch, a group of friends and I raised a glass to the day’s clear skies and sunshine, greeting summer weather and basking in its warmth. We were eating sticky rice, marinated chicken hot from the charcoal grill, asparagus ditto, lightly dressed local salad greens, and a trio of made-by-my friends Thai dipping sauces as side-condiments. And we were eating with our hands, most of us, sensually and happily.

But alas we were prematurely optimistic, for today we’re back to drizzle and chill. The garden is happy, I suppose, in its greeness, but the cool temperatures are holding back the basil and chiles and eggplants, which still look a little shell-shocked even two full weeks after being transplanted. We tend, here in eastern Canada, to bemoan the fact that we have a very short spring season and leap straight from chilly into summer heat. This year is the great corrective, more like English spring than our usual, and lasting several months for a change. Perhaps this means that asparagus season will be extended, and salad greens will going on being tender for longer, rather than being heated into tough and bitter leaves by intense heat. The trick is to look for the side-benefits, right?

I wrote last week that old friends of mine were going to throw an engagement party at my house last Saturday and that I hoped for cool weather so the peonies could stay fresh until the party. Well I perhaps wished too hard, for we had very cold weather all week. But one happy consequence was what I’d hoped for: the two ancient peony bushes in my back garden are still in full aromatic white and pink bloom, spalshy against the bright green of ferns.

The engagement party was huge, and a huge success, for the weather gods smiled, the catering, by Dawn and Ed of Evelyn’s Crackers, was spectacular (all Thai, a lot of it vegan-friendly; the beef and chicken were locally sourced), the DJ’ing (two turntables, the works) by Ben Rothberg was astonishing and wonderful, and everyone was feeling celebratory, and happy to reconnect with the huge network of friends and family of the bride-to-be. Whew! The dancing went on until three… I owe my neighbours big-time for their patience.

A side-bonus to all the work of party prep is that my house is wonderfully clean and organised. There’s nothing like a deadline (and an obligation owed to someone else, rather than just to oneself) for getting chores done well and thoroughly. I feel spring-cleaned to the max.

And I’m also feeling a little wiped out today, as I try to gather my thoughts after the intensities of the week and the weekend. Time seems to be flying by suddenly. I have only two more classes to teach of Foods that Changed the World (I’ll miss the class; it’s been great); right after the last class comes the summer solstice; soon after that I leave to go to the Oxford Symposium, a huge treat; and by the time it’s over we’ll be well into July…  I find that when I’m tired my thoughts tend to rush ahead to anticipate, and when they do, time telescopes so that I feel the days rushing past beneath my feet dizzyingly. It’s not a useful way to feel.

The solution I’ve discovered is to retreat to the age-old technique of making lists, by hand, with a pen or pencil, on a piece of paper. It slows down that rushing forward, anchors me in the present, and generally makes me more realistic and calm. I think I’m due for another session of list-making!

SINGING AND CELEBRATING, RAIN AND SHINE

Last week I mentioned deluges in the title of my blog posting, and this week I have more drenching and storming in mind as I write. I always think of August as a rainy month, but this second half of August is outdoing itself, all monsoony, warm and dripping with lushness everywhere. Little frogs were hopping across the wet black pavement as I was driving down a country road today and my car smells damp because I've left the windows open several times recently and been caught out. The rain has come pouring in and getting things dried out hasn't been a very successful affair. I feel extra-foolish because this is a shared car. No fun for my co-owner to sit in a car that smells of damp underwear!!

I was dismayed yesterday morning when I awoke early, to realise that it's already that time of year, when the days aren't bright until after six. Yikes! The overcast sky didn't help of course, but it sure seemed dark and autumnal out at 5.45. I was up early because I had a dish to make for a potluck, and needed to be on the road by seven. The event? The all-day southern Ontario Sacred Harp singing at the Detweiler Meeting House, in Roseville, near Waterloo. Singers came from Michigan and Illinois, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, as well as from many parts of Ontario, so that we had over seventy-five people altogether. The sound was intense and wonderful, and the mood very buoyant.

I raced away early from the singing, dashing northward to a hand-fasting, a druidic wedding you might say, in Grey County. I got there in time, just, to find another group of about seventy people, this one also happy and full of good energy. We were garlanded with flowers and helped ourselves to a little food and drink in a big marquee tent, then we all walked up a grassy track across a green meadowy hill. From there the track led into an austerely beautiful pine forest, all vertical lines, with a cushiony pine-needled floor. We formed a circle in the forest and watched as the couple made vows and received blessings. A small fire was lit, we were smudged in all directions, and there were words about the power and generosity of the earth air, wind, rocks, trees... But as we watched the couple's vows, the trees started swaying high above and then suddenly the heavens opened and cold cold raindrops came pelting down on us. It took only moments to drench us through.

There was no point in rushing away, and there was something intimate, however odd it sounds, abut sharing the rain and cold together. So we didn't hurry. Instead we all walked in a straggling long line back up the track through the forest, chatting, laughing, shivering, across the big open green field, now windswept, wet and chilling, and back to the tent. I had dry clothes in the car; many others lived within twenty minutes' drive, so they headed home to change. The couple we had come to celebrate went into the farmhouse and changed into comfy warm clothing. When we all reassembled in the big dining tent, it was as happy survivors, who knew that none of us would forget our friends' wedding, our shared drenching, or the feeling of community we all shared. Druid magic? Perhaps so.

No-one seemed put out, or upset. No-one there had illusions that they were in charge of the weather. We'd put ourselves in the hands of mother nature and she'd spoken, reminding us to enjoy things as they come. And we did!

On the food front:
For the wedding potluck, Philly made a pair of small round loaves that were purple-red, and each decorated with a large heart on top. The bread, flavored with roasted beets and a little honey, was hauntingly delicious. She's passed on the recipe. I'll post it if anyone is interested... Meantime, here is a link to the recipe that she started with (and adapted): http://www.cookingbread.com/classes/class_roasted_beet_bread.html

At the singing there was an amazing pie-like cake, layers of grated apple separated by tender crust. The man who made it said the recipe came from a newspaper and that the writer had said it was from his?her? Polish grandmother. It's very easy-sounding, and short, so here it is, roughly as he told me. I haven't yet made it myself: 3 pounds of grated apple; one cup each flour, non-instant cream of wheat, and white sugar; one teaspoon baking soda; and butter for the spring-form pan and to be dotted on top. Mix all the dry ingredients together. One third of the dries go in the bottom, then half the apples, and repeat and then the last third of the dries on top, then dotted butter. Bake at 350 for an hour, and cover for the first half-hour of baking, then uncover so it browns a little on top. The moisture in the apples wets the dries (and I guess the covering is to prevent moisture escaping as it all heats up and steam-cooks). It was not very sweet, simple and delicious, very tender, and felt like another take on the SImplest Apple Cake that is in Home Baking. That recipe is from a good friend, whose mother, a survivor from eastern Poland, used to make it with an incomparably light hand.

I gathered more fennel pollen late last week from the gone-wild black fennel plants in the back yard. it was for a friend who had found very fresh scallops at the market. We cut them in half, tossed them with a little olive oil and salt and the fennel pollen, so they had a speckling of green-yellow, and then ate them, just like that.

PASSAGES FROM STRESS INTO BLOOM AND EASE

You must have had weeks like the one I've just had. They're exhausting. Mine was filled with intensities, anticipations, anxieties, and then in the end, with relief and delight that the pressured squeezed period is coming to an end... The biggest measure of relief is that my taxes are done, hurrah! So now I can clean up the garden, plant lettuce seed etc, and engage, at last.

At the same time the young people in the house are writing papers and working their way through their final exam schedule. Argh! It brings back memories of the coerciveness of exams! Give me taxes any day, over that!

One other event this week that marked a significant passage was that I drove the van (the blue Toyota Sienna that has been in our lives for almost exactly eleven years) up to Grey County and left it there. Farewell valiant steed! is what I felt like saying. I'm not a car person and tend not to love or even notice cars or other motorised vehicles. But this van I became very attached to. The first summer we had it, in 1999, we drove it all the way from Toronto to the west coast, to Wyoming, and through Idaho to Washington, then north to British Columbia, back across the Prairies, and then through the Dakotas and Minnesota to Chicago and finally Toronto. That was its inaugural trip. We took the middle seat out and put a rug on the floor, so the kids had lots of room.

Yes, yes, I confess that in the wide open unpeopled spaces of the west the kids spent a lot of time on the floor, out of their seatbelts, playing with Lego or stuffed animals, or reading.

Later on the van became a truck and farm vehicle, handy for hauling lumber and found objects, for pulling logs and heavy objects, a real work horse, up at the farm. The kids both drove it, their first road driving and parking practice, on easy country roads. We also made trips to New York City and Ottawa, and countless trips to Grey County, northwest of here. So we're imprinted with the van, it's almost a member of the family. But now it's time to let it go, giving it a final appreciative metaphorical pat on the nose!

So now the question is, do I look for a small used car? Or do I do the car-share thing and otherwise, if I want to go out of town, rent a car? I don't like to drive in the city, for political reasons, but it sure is nice to be able to offer people rides and to feel flexible.

Perhaps as a friend said to me this week when we talked about taxes, we are facing a more frugal future, all of us. We are more aware of environmental issues, and we soon will need to slow our consumption of (mindless?) consumer items and live perhaps more like our parents did. Maybe becoming carless is my first step in this direction?

Sorry for this not-very-interesting mulling out loud!

Grey County was at the next stage of spring, with fields a rolling brilliant green but trees still bare of leaves. Peepers, little frogs, trilled loudly in streams and ponds. Everything is early this year, a good two weeks, and very dry too. Unpaved roads billowed dust as I drove along them yesterday. The stars were brilliant last night, with no sign of cloud in the midnight sky.

But just before dawn it started to rain, first a pitter-patter on the roof, later a thrumming downpour with a flash or two of lightning shortly after dawn. It soon eased back to fine gentle rain. I walked out into Lillian's forest and it was as if the earth was inhaling the moisture, sucking it in gratefully. The lovely scent of wet leaves and wet wood filled the air. I breathed it in gratefully. Spring regained its softness and promise. In a branch overhead a bird trilled confidently.