Snozzberries, Poutine & SNOW in Toronto!

Serendipity... almost as good a word as dubious. Both appropriate! A few weeks back, Tracie asked me, "Isn't this a friend of yours?" Indeed! Tyler Clark Burke was being really interesting again, importing something I will refer to as the snozzberry, but she refers to as the mystery fruit. This tiny little berry, alters the way food tastes. So... then the globe and mail has an article about another berry tasting happening at the Drake Hotel in Toronto, and that's where I am!!! So I go! Not only was it fun to see old friends including Tyler, Cheryl and Michael (and meet new ones), I got to have probably one of the oddest and most fun food experiences to date. Warning: if you believe in dietary balance and the consumption of regularly associated foods, do not read on.

Here I am eyeballing the fruit... you might say I'm dubious... or wall-eyed.

Here the other guinea pigs are... various emotions, not sure if any dubiosity is involved here. Perhaps stunned? Worried? Distracted?
This photo makes it clear... there is NO (I repeat...NO) need for being skeptical. These berries work. The best things were probably lemons and limes, which tasted very much like sweet lemonade or limeade. Sour candies tasted like sweet candies. Little pickles tasted like sweet pickles (although, we couldn't tell... maybe they actually were sweet in the first place). Vinegar had a sweet beginning with a more vinegary finish. The most interesting was wasabi. Eating wasabi had a sweet/smooth beginning to it, with some heat... but heat depended on the person it seems. It's all kind of wacky, and left me thinking that different potato chips would have been an interesting experience as well (salt & vinegar, barbeque, wasabi even) although, I have vague memories of there being fruit flavoured chips in the 70's??? There might be a reason it didn't last...

This doesn't relate to the berry so much as it shows a bad camera angle can really affect a photo. And bad timing. While in reality it was the feeding of a spoonful of vinegar... it magically appears like someone making a goofy face while being knuckled in the kisser. There were a few foods that miraculously tasted like... themselves. I guess nothing can make brussel sprouts better?

Then... when flavours began to return and tobasco tasted like... tobasco... we went to the next stage of the "dream trip to Toronto"...

Tracie is going to kill me. She was upset enough I was getting to try snozzberries... without also getting poutine... and good poutine with veggie gravy at that!! When she had poutine, she wasn't impressed. This was pretty good. The veggie gravy was tasty, the potatoes were real, and the cheese curds were fresh (enough?)!

Biodegradeable bucket and forks too!
Here's me... and poutini!Ahhh... poutinis...

And now, for something completely different...
...and then to show that hell froze over and all of the stars were in alignment... in 30 degree Celsius weather, it snowed... and stayed on the ground... for the people filming on Queen Street. It kind of broke me though... you mean sometimes when I watch movies there are fake things in them?

Ahhh... friends make the world go round. A great evening...

Fresh Bread

There's something slightly unfair about being awake earlier on the weekend than during the week. I took advantage of that this morning to bake bread for breakfast. Shortly after Tracie got up, the bread was waiting... with some raspberry jam from (many thanks to both of our moms for the plethora of preserves in our cupboard... one of our favourite things to have).

Quickie

What I started last weekend:
Stay tuned for more info on Tracie's first brewfest


What I hope to do again soon:
Harvest fresh mint
Combine with cream, sugar and some eggs

and make FRESH MINT ICE CREAM!

Kitchen Aid Mixers and Microwaves

Tracie asked me this morning if I would be baking rye bread so often if we didn't have our kitchen aid mixer. No. This is one labour saving device! Also, we bought a convection microwave oven. Having a microwave that has some power to it is kind of awesome. It cooks things quickly, and has the added feature of being a microwave oven. The scale in the photo is also pretty good. Weighing ingredients has a benefit for baking especially (so I've been told).

Tracie is working on a quilt for a friend who is leaving Alaska for Colorado. She's a good friend and a wonderful person - Kelly Kane, best of luck to you wherever you are. We'll see you in beautiful Colorado!

Pete Briggs Picks up Pigs

Tiffany (a good friend in Bethel) asked Tracie to pick up some piglets for her from Wasilla and put them on a plane to Bethel. She has interesting requests sometimes, but this one wins. So, Peter got to pick up two porkers, package them up in the truck, and pull their posteriors back to the palacio. The two piglets are pictured here:

Their prickly, petlike parent is pictured here (700lbs of pure pork):

We've been told we will have a lifetime supply of delicious things from rural Alaska now! Smoked salmon bellies and the such... mmmm...

And for those that don't know... there is a Dr. Seuss poem that starts "Pete Briggs pats pigs". This is now a true story. This Pete Briggs has now patted pigs.

Tracie took them for their flight to Bethel last night at 2:00am. They got to go through the MVP line, and I hear the inflight movie was Babe (or Charlotte's Web?). Maybe fate will be kind to them... =)

Ryebread

One of the best things I've baked (and continue baking)... rye bread... thanks to Grethe's recipe by way of mormor. We normally cook two big and two small... and give one away to some lucky person each week. It might be you...

(I've added 1/3c wheat berries, 1/3c steelcut oats, 1/3c powdered flax, and 1/3c gluten... the last seeming to help with the crumb of the bread??)

Mormor's 90th Birthday

This is who it's all about. Mormor. Mormor is one of the most important people in my life. So many of my memories growing up have her as a part of it. The small but so important things that make us who we are. She'd read to me, and she still tells me how much I looked forward to learning how to read. She'd get me to do things for her (like pull some metal wire garden bed fencing out) and be so appreciative. Being around Mormor made/makes me feel like I could do anything, and anything I did would be right. Her honesty and compassion are so contagious, and her voice is the one at the back of my head when I need to make the right decision. Food is probably one of the keys to our relationship, and importantly, helping her with it. Whether decorating gingerbread men or helping her make vanilla kranse, like many third generation kids, I learned a lot about Denmark through eating. This is a good kind of learning, and sticks with me. I just pulled a few loaves of rye bread out of the oven, and having a slice smeared with butter (the Danish have one of the best concepts... teeth butter. Where when you've bitten your bread, you can see teeth marks in the butter) reminds me of her and my childhood. Oddly enough, as a vegetarian, I think that I will still say my favourite food would be mormor's rye bread with liver paste and pickled beets. I get to forever remember how good that was. I think I could go on for so long about how special she is to me. At her birthday party I had so much to say to her, but found myself at a loss for words... and much tears. I'm even tearing up a bit now. It's such a good feeling to love someone so much that wanting to tell them how much they mean to you is almost impossible. While I wish in some ways that I was more articulate speaking in front of my family, I know they understand. Even if I had prepared what I was going to say, I know I would have been no better off. She's my mormor...

So... I finally sat down today to print photos, burn CDs and assorted things to send out to the family. April 6th was my grandmother's 90th birthday and we had the first family gathering where EVERYONE was there! It involved two great parties and much family! I can't think of a better reason for celebration than something involving my mormor!

This is the whole family! A better bunch we would not have been without our Mormor!

These are mormor's girls: Chriss, Elizabeth and Grethe.

Mormor's grandkids: Michael, David, Sarah, Peter, Ian and Paul.


Chriss and her family (Tracie, Peter, Chriss, Amanda, Michael and Nicholas).

Grethe and her family (Brooke, David, Grethe, Larry, Paul and Joanna).
Elizabeth and her family (Vance, Elizabeth, Ian and Sarah - looking very scandinavian indeed).
And Mormor and Nicholas. Knowing that another generation is under the influence of a mormor (mormormor?) is a good thing. I know that Tracie and I very much would like to introduce mormor to our kids (when the stork brings them). And to quell any potential rumours from this, we would like kids but no buns in the oven yet. =)

Thank you for reading this post. I can't think of a better or more meaningful subject.