RHUBARB, ALMOND MILK, & NEW POSSIBILITIES

Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.  For me it's a major contender for the title "Best of the intensities of spring."  The competition includes ramps, lilacs, lilies of the valley, the sweet aroma of cottonwoods in new leaf, the fabulous sharp light...

I'm staying this Victoria Day weekend with a friend at her new place north of Toronto, near a village called Dunedin.  Her house is built into the side of a hill, with air and wind and light in all directions.  The breezes mean that there are no flies or mosquitoes, and being up on a hill gives a full panoramic view of a ridge of the Niagara Escarpment to the south and east.  At night there's the vast starry sky.

Yesterday I went exploring early, before the heat (has the May long weekend ever been this hot?).  There's a branch of the Bruce trail nearby, starting with a wooden stile at the roadside just down the hill.  What a treat to be out in new-to-me country, with a trail to follow and birds and other morning sounds to keep me company.  There was some elegant easy boardwalk over a long swampy stretch, then a climb, a bridge across a creek, grassy fields, airy hardwood forest, sweeps of dark ploughed earth, expanses of grassy pasture...and layers of greening landscape overlapping off into the distance.

In one forested stretch clumps of ramps showed green and healthy, and out in the grass there were patches of strawberries in white bloom, flagging the spot to go back and seek them out in a few weeks.  This morning I took my friend and the other two who are staying up this weekend out on a walk on the trail.  We breathed in the air, listened to the forest, breathed it all in and felt grateful, and renewed.

My friend wants to have a garden.  But there's a problem: there are deer in these hills, tall white-tailed deer.  Three of them were grazing on a slope in front of the house a couple of days ago.  They caught sight of me as I came round the corner of the house and went leaping off, with huge bounds, but not running fast, their tails like white banners.  Herbs will be fine, but with deer around any garden greens, lettuces, etc are doomed.  We'll see if they like basil.  Does anyone know?  But at least on this sunny slope she'll be able to have lavender and the perennial herbs like thyme and tarragon and mint.  And she wants masses of lilacs... Spring will be a heady perfumed time up here next year if all goes well.

Along the trail we came upon some ramps (wild leeks) growing in clumps, and some intensely fresh mint growing near a stream.  We gathered dandelion greens and a few ramp; they'll all go into soup for lunch today, along with dried mushrooms.  And then we'll have mint tea to refresh ourselves before we head back into the city.

And rhubarb?  Well I brought some up from the city, grown locally, and cooked it up as part of supper on Saturday night.  We were four, eating local pork that had been spice-rubbed, grilled, then sliced, along with quinoa, and stir-fried amarmanth greens.  Wonderful.  Then some people dropped by yesterday and brought more rhubarb, which became dessert last night (sweetened with a mix of maple syrup and honey).

But of all the food in this rather rambling (blame it on a relaxing weekend ) post, the one I want to tell you about is not local: almonds.  My friend loves nuts.  She makes sure to wash them thoroughly, to avoid mould, then she dries them in a cool oven (at about 100 fahrenheit) overnight.  That's fine for walnuts etc.  But with almonds she goes one further:  She washes them, then soaks them for three days, changing the water each day, to get them to start sprouting.  Then it's easy to slip them out of their peel/skin.  She freezes the peeled almonds in batches.

The final goal is almond milk: almonds blended with warm water in a strong blender or osterizer make almond milk.  You can then add other fruits to them to make a smoothie.  But even more delicious was the breakfast she made for us yesterday:  Heat the freshly made almond milk in a pot, add oatmeal and cook it in the almond milk.  Then, and this will give you pause, whisk together a couple of eggs and stir them into the hot mass of oatmeal and milk.  When they're just cooked, serve in bowls, and add honey to sweetened a little, or fruit, if you want.

It sounds and reads and looks like a wild combo.  It's delicious, satisfying, a new horizon for me.

(One thing I loved about the oatmeal was that there was no milkiness to it.  I don't like fresh milk, and it doesn't like me much either!  To be eating oatmeal, which I like a lot, without having any queasy feeling, no milky bubble in my throat, was a revelation, a whole new oatmeal experience.)

Now to find organic almonds and start the soaking/sprouting process.

Sprouting...another springing-to-life idea.  How wonderful.

TIME FOR PLANTING & OTHER OPTIMISMS

Writing here feels like playing hookey! I should be editing the Burma book, since I'm in the last ten days before I submit the manuscript. Well I've been doing a lot of that book-work, so it's time for a break.

Procrastination and avoidance are such interesting phenomena. How we justify them, or just fail to admit what we're doing, is a whole study in human behaviour! I have managed several great breaks in the last few days, each time telling myself that I need to clear my head. That may well be true, but I'm not sure that taking a whole day off was necessary!

I'm talking about Sunday, when Dawn-the-baker and I drove out of town at 7.30 in the morning under a grey and overcast sky, headed for Grey County, but not directly. First we had to go to Listowel to pick up some maple syrup; Dawn uses it in the granola that she makes as part of the Evelyn's Crackers line of locally made crackers and shortbread etc. And just south of Listowel are the Hoovers, who make organic syrup.

What??!? you say, how could maple syrup NOT be organic? The answer is that it depends on how the equipment is cleaned. The Hoovers use no chemical agents, just the sap itself, to clean the pans and pipes. It's an amazing operation, using sap from the trees in their bush, and wood from that bush to cook the sap. Talk about sustainable and local!

Because it was Sunday, on our way between Waterloo and Listowel on small country roads we passed Mennonites, old order Mennonites in their black horse carts, driving to Sunday service. In one yard there were over forty carts, drawn by one horse or a matched pair. The fields were such an intense green under the overcast sky, and the carts shone black against the green, the men clean-shaven in black hats, the married women all in black with a bonnet, and only the girls wearing a little colour, perhaps some purple or intense blue. We felt lucky to be out and about in Mennonite Country with eyes to see its loveliness, and time to admire it.

From Listowel we headed north to Grey County, via Ayton and Neustadt, and eventually to the small town of Elmwood. The STC, Saugeen Trading Community, which I've written about before, was having its spring Market Day. It's a chance for members to buy and sell, for trading community credit or federal dollars, or a mixture, and to catch up on news. I came away filled with news and warmed by friendship. More tangible loot included a ceramic bowl, a pair of gently worn yellow pants, some rhubarb, and a load of plants/starts: tomato and basil and chile peppers.

It really is time to plant now that the warm weather has come (as of yesterday). All the starts I bought (including some cumin plants from a small nursery) are now in the ground except the tomatoes. I came across lots of fat worms as I dug today, very encouraging. The tomato plants will go in bags of soil (to avoid the blight in my garden), perhaps tomorrow, when I take yet another break from the Burma bookwork!

And in the neighbourhood as I go for my morning run the chestnut trees are in full magnificent bloom, the irises are coming out, and the city's cyclists have now all got their bicycles on the road it seems. What a great sight, people in business clothing pedalling to work instead of driving in a car. The university of Toronto is now in full Convocation/Graduation swing, with lawns all mowed and a huge tent set up opposite Convocation Hall. Today there was a lovely crowd of happy parents and graduates out on the green grass looking delighted, and a straggle of academics in red and black and all kinds of coloured robes and hoods making thier way back to their offices from the ceremony.

I was on my bicycle threading my way through them, for I was headed to a Women's Culinary Network event late this afternoon. It was a potluck. I took some incredible wide flat crackers made by Dawn-the-baker, beautiful eight by eleven inch flats, and to go with them, a big block of old cheddar, and a jar of freshly-invented "chutney". The crackers were a hit, and the chutney and cheese too. Here's the chutney story: I had some stewed rhubarb, slightly sweet, made from the fruit I'd bought in Grey County. So I heated olive oil, added mustard seed and fennel and a little turmeric, and some dried red chiles, then tossed in chopped dandelion greens and garlic chives from the back garden. Once they'd wilted with a little salt, I added the rhubarb and cooked it all down a little. The combination of bitter and sweet and tart with some chile heat too was great, essence of springtime in one easy mouthful!

LOST AND FOUND, COLOUR AND LIFE RETURNING

The ides of March and the long shadow of Julius Caesar welcome us to spring... Here in Toronto, after some lovely sun, we’ve had three days of rain and drizzle and wind and more rain. The ground is sodden and the first dark-red-edged green tulip leaves are an inch or two above the ground, as are the pale pointed leaves of the clumps of iris in the back garden.

My friend Cassandra is here from Vancouver, staying over tonight. I made her a quick diabetic-friendly late supper (meaning low-carb): chopped fennel and radicchio stir-fried in olive oil flavoured with mustard seed and dried chile and ginger, topped with a fried egg. The egg is from Potz at the market, pale green-blue and fresh, almost too beautiful to crack open. There was some Bleubry, a Quebec cheese new to me, to follow. Cassandra manages her pre-diabetic state with diligence and care and real discipline. I so feel lucky to be able to be casual and unplanned about my eating.

Cassandra is heading to the Maldives tomorrow with her daughter to go diving, a big treat for them both. (She and I long ago took a diving course together, then went diving in Cozumel and in the Red Sea. I've let it drop, but she's kept her certification..) Her fins are packed! So as I sit here writing this, she is busy doing advanced check-in: Toronto-DC-Doha-Male on Qatar Airways. It all feels very exotic to me, a lovely escape from chores such as taxes, the next entry on my “to-do” list.

I’ve been slowly gathering myself together this last week, unpacking not just my bags but also my head, from my long weeks in Chiang Mai and Burma. There was the first brilliant red tender Ontario rhubarb at the market the other day, so I used it to top a skillet cake. The colour was just glorious and the cake vanished. I’ve also done some banking, amended the immersethrough website to show the dates for next year, done my laundry, and seen a few friends, but I have still not managed to find my Canadian SIM card. And that pattern, of some things achieved and others very much NOT done, is somehow a familiar one from other times of travel and change.

Misplacing the SIM card reminds me that loss and finding seem to have been themes of my days this last while. I wrote earlier here about dropping my money-purse at Muang Mai market and having it returned to me before I had even realised it was gone. Well the next loss was more worrisome: I got to Canadian immigration in Toronto, after my flight from Bangkok via Tokyo, and when I reached into my zip pocket for my passport it wasn’t there. Nor was it anywhere else in my handcarry.

The Immigration guy was fabulous, as I started to get flustered: “Don’t worry, he said, we have to let you in if we’re satisfied you’re a citizen, even if you don’t have a passport.” That felt good. “Just go straight dowstairs and talk to the Air Canada people. They can check if you left it on the plane.” I did, and they did, again very kindly and without condescension (for which I was grateful; I felt so stupid!!). And by the time my checked bag had arrived, they’d run back to the plane, retrieved my passport, and had it waiting for me.

The kindness of strangers is a wonderful thing. Time to pass it on!

Meantime the pot of daffodils a friend brought by a week ago is still in bloom, yellow and optimistic, and the almost garishly intense pink-red cyclamen brought by another friend is still a hot spot in the kitchen. All we need now is more spring warmth and sunshine outside too.

CELEBRATION

Out shopping in Kensington Market yesterday, I stopped in at 4 Life, at the corner of Augusta and Nassau to say hi to Potz and have a look for some rhubarb.  I had to pick up some apples (fuji's) instead, because there was no rhubarb left (it's just newly arriving here, like the local asparagus)...  

The fruit was for a tart, using the second half of some extremely short pastry I'd made the day before.  The first half did turn into a rhubarb tart with some rhubarb I'd found earlier.  The tart was open-faced, and firmed up with a little custard poured over near the end of baking.  I made it at my friend Pattie's house, baked it in her convection oven.  I've never baked in a convection oven before.  Is it better for pies?  Or is it just generally faster? or?  The pie, improvised, as ever, turned out beautifully.  Last night's, all apples, was melty and delish, the apples still slightly resistant to the bite, which I love.  I had a small bowl of it left over for breakfast this morning.

But I started talking about Potz at 4 Life for another reason.  I told him yesterday that I was planning to grill the wonderful-looking steak I'd bought from him ten days ago (frozen; and at the time he didn't remember the price of the cut, so though I had it in my freezer for a week, it was only paid for on Friday!).  Potz put a generous handful of wild leeks in my hand.  "If you're grilling meat, just put these on the grill alongside," he said.  I did, after brushing them with a little olive oil.  They were gorgeous, beautiful on a yellow Fiesta ware plate, and a delish treat seasoned with a sprinkle of Malden salt.

And the beef?  Well that too was delish, local pasture-fed Ontario beef.  I sliced it thinly, then made a simple "yam neua", Thai grilled beef salad, with just slices of shallot (Asia purple ones), generous garden mint and some store-bought Thai basil, tossed with a lime juice-fish sauce dressing.  I left out chiles because our friend Dina stops breathing if she has any chile (very inconvenient, a sensitivity to capsaicin!) and even in this altered version the salad vanished.

There was a small crowd of friends here yesterday evening, eating and drinking and talking.  The excuse (do we ever really need one?) was that Dom has finished his undergrad, Ian is leaving tomorrow for Thailand, and Melissa has just arrived from Chiang Mai, so we thought we' d pause to enjoy the moment.  It was a kind of improvised celebration, I guess you could say.  (Yesterday was also mothers' day.  Every day is mothers' day, of course.  I find I can accept the Hallmark thing though, because it is a good idea that at least once in a year people get formally reminded of mothers' essential role in the universe!  Don't you agree?)

And what better way to celebrate all good things than by hanging around with friends, being warmed by the extended family?  I can't think of anything I like more.

and for those who want more about the food people brought:

there was prosciutto with sliced figs and lots of lime wedges [I originally wrote "lemon wedges" and then was firmly corrected by Trisha "I ALWAYS use lime wedges, if I have them, with prosciutto!"]; there was a pile of grilled chicken wings from Kung with her fabulous nam jeem (hot and sweet and tart dipping sauce); there was another Thai beef salad from Ben and Susan; an asparagus salad from Emily; a beet and endive and onion salad from Hilary; two great dips from Anne: a hummous and a tapaenade; a Thai red curry with fried tofu, shiitakes, and green eggplants; a plain cake; a huge tin of chocolate chip cookies made with chopped good chocolate; the apple tart; a ricotta galette from Dawn; a huge lasagna from Ethan; and wine of various descriptions from many people.  Warm thoughts and thanks to all...