A few days into it... a light coating on the birch branches.
Spruce needles.
Backyard trellis with frosty hops.
Pine looking like it's been spray painted!
Every view is photo-worthy.
Nice contrast in colour...
Front of our house... nice composition between spruce in front and birch behind.
The crabapples we didn't pick for making jelly...
...looking very cool as frosted bird treats...
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?
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 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?
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).
Stay tuned for more info on Tracie's first brewfest
Harvest fresh mint
Combine with cream, sugar and some eggs
and make FRESH MINT ICE CREAM!
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... =)
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...
This is the whole family! A better bunch we would not have been without our Mormor!
Thank you for reading this post. I can't think of a better or more meaningful subject.
We also worked in the garden on a very lovely, sunny day. We found some pieces of a garden shelter that we have repurposed as trellises ( I heart Craigslist)... so, are trying kiwi vine, hops, and woodbine vine. Tracie planted the garden beds with a whole bunch of veggies. We set up some lines for peas to grow up. Some bush beans too... and potatoes. We've hit the limit for the amount of mulch we can use in the yard, so no more shredding leaves and chipping branches to compost. Rather than being one large compost pile, the other side of our yard is now scheduled for landscaping.
Biking away from work to count and then come back to work.
My lovely Tracie.
The awesome Laura.
And me...
Was in Oregon last week (after Vancouver) and spent time at the Oregon Garden for a workshop on Green Infrastructure. The Garden is great, and it was fun to see all of the species of plants there that we can't use here. Kind of like a zoo... for plants... I guess that's the definition of something like an arboretum...
Also saw Frank Lloyd Wright's only building in Oregon... the Gordon House. Suffice it to say, it's quite inspiring to see good design...
Victoria up to bat...
Wilson warming up (getting ready to serve some killer pitches to unsuspecting small people)
Madeline with the good ole 'me taking picture of you' camera shot.
Michael perhaps glowing even more than Nicholas... "if only I had Thomas when I was a kid..."
