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I’ve had enough winter now.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

This morning when I woke up the cat was on edge and chattering and chirping at the window because OHMYGOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!, which is what she must have meant. Large white chunks were falling where birds usually fly, and she was not prepared. And then I had to tell Nick about the mess, and soon the two of them were at it, chittering away about the whiteness and the terrible, slippery bleakness of it all.

I checked my email four times, but work wasn’t cancelled.

I dressed accordingly.

And there was a line at Starbucks, which I go to because there isn’t anything better around. At least there wasn’t, and thank goodness for stupid busy Starbucks because I finally went into this other coffee place that’s a few steps past my bus stop, and holy crap, they had Nutella hot chocolate.

Sprinkled with 70% dark Callebaut chocolate, which is hand-shaved daily.

And served by the friendliest coffee shop employee I’ve ever encountered at 8:10 in the morning.

I took a picture, but there was another person in the place so I felt like I had to rush, so it’s blurry.

The place is called Dose Espresso Bar, and it’s on Broadway and Granville, and if you’re in the neighbourhood, please go. Independent coffee shops are a rarity this end of Broadway and based on the hot chocolate alone I insist you frequent this one. Frequently.

When I got to work, the place was covered in snow, and quiet. It’s a pretty place when snow falls, before a day’s footprints turn the fluffy white stuff into sloppy brown slush.

My face is still heavy with a cold I can’t stop complaining about, so my friend Dan and I went for pho for lunch.

Dan was kind enough to not say anything about my runny nose and my inability to eat long noodles like a lady. The soup was hot and soothing, and with a few squirts of sriracha was just spicy enough. I practically inhaled the whole bowl, and we gossiped and Dan told me what real winters are like in other parts of Canada.

Intolerable, from the sounds of it.

The day never got much brighter than it was when I rode the bus to work this morning, but in small doses, perhaps this winter business isn’t so bad. I’m done with it, but if I have to endure it longer, which Environment Canada says is pretty much a guarantee, good hot chocolate and spicy soup will make it somewhat more bearable.

On choosing a pumpkin if you are six.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

If you are six, the pumpkin you choose for your jack-o-lantern is extremely important. You must not choose the wrong pumpkin, but you are lucky, because there is a perfect pumpkin out there for you, and if you are patient you will find it.

You are not of the unfortunate age yet where you have to buy your own pumpkin, so rest assured that when you find your perfect pumpkin, it will be yours. Also, at six you may depend on your charm if your arms are too small to carry your perfect pumpkin and you need help. At 26, your toothless grin will be significantly less adorable. This is perhaps the only wisdom I can offer confidently to anyone.

There will be some very good pumpkins. There will be more bad ones, and some that look good from far away on one side but when you get close they will turn out to be rotten and squished. You will think a particular pumpkin is perfect, but it won’t be quite right when you think about it, once you start imagining the face you’ll carve into its flatter side.

Someone might suggest something boring and practical to you, like picking a pumpkin you can carry yourself. She might even suggest that a green pumpkin is good enough, and maybe even sort of nice if you think about it. But you know better. That green pumpkin isn’t nice. It’s green. And who wants to settle for the convenient pumpkin, if you could even call it that, because is there anything convenient about an unsuitable pumpkin? That is not what jack-o-lanterns are about.

So you will wander off, on your own, with the hope that your perfect pumpkin is in another place.

And then you’ll think that you’ve found it.

You will be surprised to discover that pumpkin rolling isn’t as easy as you thought it would be, and that just out of your line of sight there is a ditch and once you get there, you will be dismayed to discover that you cannot cross with your pumpkin. It wasn’t the right pumpkin, though. You just thought it was, but don’t worry.

There are a lot of other pumpkins. Better pumpkins, even.

The most important thing, though, is that you are six.

When you are six, someone will look after you, and when you find your perfect pumpkin, your enthusiasm will be infectious. You will talk about the jack-o-lantern you will carve, and you and everyone else will know that you made the exact right decision. Because ultimately, you did. That is the thing about six-year-olds and pumpkins.

There are some things they just know.

Happy Thanksgiving!

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

It’s Thanksgiving here in Canada, and we’re all over the place, feasting as if we’ve never feasted before, and wearing pants with elastic waistbands.

I met friends for dim sum in the morning, and then headed home to goad Nick into getting up and dressed and signing a card.

For some reason, the cat bathes Nick rather frequently. She either thinks he’s her kitten, or is absolutely disgusted by him and feels compelled to clean him every chance she gets.

At my parents’, we were greeted with the smell of turkey and a table full of Lego, which would ultimately become somethingorother with Darth Vader or something. Apparently it’s a boy thing.

Dad’s getting pretty good about not stabbing me when I reach in to tear pieces of meat while he’s carving the thing. He sets the crackly skin at the edge so I can reach it without putting my hand at the pointy end of the knife.

I think he’s mimicking behaviour he sees from his aunt and uncle. That’s a soft cider, by the way.

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope yours is full of cats and turkeys and Lego, and that you get to bed at a reasonable hour, before indigestion sets in. If you’re in America and aren’t going to be having one of these for another six weeks, then Happy Thanksgiving in advance!

Update: I am not dead.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

I am, however, a novelist. Maybe not in the “published author” sense, but since I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for three days doubting all the life choices that led to this and giving myself osteoporosis with Diet Coke, I figure no one’s going to argue with me.

Holy crap, it was exhausting. But also invigorating. I think I broke my liver.

I just finished my final edit, gave the thing a name, and closed the document. It’s over, I’m done. And I really like it, which is a good sign, even though parts are rushed and I used more swear words than my mother would approve of and I think every three pages someone cries which is either super dramatic or really, really emo.

We celebrated the end of the thing with a dinner of pork ribs braised in tomato sauce with red wine and rosemary, roasted summer squash, and polenta with basil and Pecorino Romano. It made itself, cooking away for hours in the oven while despair over the ending turned into satisfaction and relief.

I am going to spend all of next week sitting on the couch watching TV with my mouth hanging open.


Three days!

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

I have spent the better part of the week whining to Nick about how I had no ideas for my contribution to the 3-Day Novel Contest, but this morning – THIS MORNING – with the sun shining and the liquor store presenting its cheapest treats at every turn, I have had the early stirrings of inspiration, and though I haven’t got the details down, I think I know what I am going to write. I have to go to the office today for a little bit, so I am going to swipe a stack of sticky notes and turn the space above my computer into a wall of ideas. I am not going to spend any time crying on the floor between the hours of one and five in the morning, and I promise, I will take naps and walks to break the time up and save my eyesight.

I also have four potent bottles of creative juice, two boxes of macaroni and cheese, chocolate milk, five pounds of stone fruit, a chunk of Cheddar, a loaf of bread, and a fresh jar of peanut butter. I think I have pickles in the fridge, and there is a bag of chocolate chips hidden at the back of the left bottom cupboard underneath several bags of lentils which I have been saving in case of emergency. Tomatoes are roasting and stock is defrosting, which means actual nourishment will be possible with some help from Nick.

The cat has food, Nick has plans, and I have washed all of the pajamas and comfortable underpants I’ll need to remain mostly clothed. The countdown is on, there are ten hours to go! Wish me luck!

Love,

Emily

Garden report: We have so much chard, and the threat of too many cucumbers.

~ wellfedemily ~ 7 Comments


Finally, thunder and lightning! I thought the air pressure had changed, because I’ve had a few bad nights in a row now where I’ve woken up terrified, haunted by bad dreams of the worst kind. The cat is screwy too, and her schedule is off and now she’s madly in love with me at all the wrong hours of the night and early morning, and there is no telling her she’s wrong when she announces with claws that it’s time to wake up and play.

The neighbourhood dogs are barking more, there have been car accidents outside my window, and the power’s been failing in spots all over the city. We had a full moon, which maybe means something.

But anyway, there are big noises outside, and piercing light every so often, and we’re at home with a hoard of chard and the garden is getting summer storm water and all is right with the world. We planted more chard, and played in the dirt, and my cucumbers have begun to flower and are taking over everything and what are we going to do with it all when the plant bears fruit?!

I ended up sticking a whole bunch of chard in the freezer, because there’s just so much of it right now, but the rest I chopped into soup with white beans, some fresh from the ground little carrots, celery, and red Okanagan field tomatoes. And herbs, rosemary and parsley. Did you know if you sprinkle a few tablespoons of cornmeal into a soup, it thickens it just slightly which makes the whole soup seem even heartier? Definitely more stew-like, which is excellent if you don’t have a long time to let a pot of soup boil and reduce.

Anyway. This is shaping up to be a terrible garden report, and I haven’t even squealed or abused an exclamation point yet.

In case you were wondering, because it sort of seems that way, Nick does seem to do most of the labour-intensive garden work, while I stand around taking pictures.

I had never seen a chard root before, but isn’t this cool?

I don’t know why he lets me get away with all this slacking off, but I do have dirt under my fingernails and I did make the soup, so maybe it evens out in the end. So, there you go! You’re all caught up, and isn’t it exciting? Have a happy Friday!

A day of fantastic meats.

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

If yesterday was all about vegetables, today was its happy opposite. Today we binged hard on meat, and sat in the sun and sampled beers and wines and this Serbian plum brandy that had me reconsidering my Dutchman.

You see that photo up top? That’s smoked tur-duck-in-hen-quail-con, which is a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a Cornish hen stuffed with a quail stuffed with a piece of pork belly. And there was sausage stuffing off to the side, and cold beer to drink with it. Apparently it took a whole week to prepare.

It was moist, and succulent, and smoky, and since there are only 12 weeks until Thanksgiving, I’ve got to get on figuring out how to do this as soon as possible.

We ate a lot. So much so that Nick’s nap has stretched into its third hour. Dinner is likely still three hours away. We sampled ribs, and ceviche.

And we had skirt steak tacos topped with homemade radish kimchi and pickled cauliflower mayonnaise, but I accidentally ate it before I could take its picture. In other news, I will be kimchi-ing radishes as soon as this meat hangover subsides.

My favourite thing, aside from the bar, was the roast pork. It changed everything. I can’t really point to specifics, but I am quite certain that my life improved for the better after my first taste of the pork. After tasting everything, we had the option of buying plates of our favourite dishes – I went ahead and bought so much pork, and decided that in my next life I am coming back as a Serbian food critic, the kind who is paid in spit-roasted piggies.

And also baked goods. The kind that are stuffed with cheese.

It was all incredibly moving. And to finish the feast, there were even cookies baked over a fire pit. Which I also don’t have photos of, because I literally inhaled mine.

Here’s more info on the event, which I can only really describe in satisfied grunts – there are almost no words. I hope they have it again next year – it was a fundraiser for Growing Chefs! Chefs for Children’s Urban Agriculture, a very worthwhile cause. In the meantime, Grace and I are on a mission to become new BFFs with the host, the lady behind Swallow Tail Tours and the Swallow Tail Supper Club.

Happy!

And since it’s now been ages since I’ve offered a recipe, stay tuned. We’re talking blueberry crisp, up next.

On the topic of picnics.

~ wellfedemily ~ 8 Comments

I meant to tell you about picnics last night, but somewhere in the hours between the time I dropped Grace off at home and then slumped into bed, I ate something mildly poisonous that left me almost certain I would die there on the bathroom floor, cat licking my face and who-knows-what stuck to it. I seem to have survived, which is kind of nice, so I took the day off because I still don’t feel or look particularly pleasant. I’m a little leery of the way the cat seems so intent on having her mouth (and teeth and tongue) on my face, so I will stay conscious as long as possible, and tell you about picnics today instead.

I had two picnics in four days last week, the first last Thursday at English Bay with take-out fish and chips, and the second yesterday, at a park beside Westham Island, with pink wine and everything you could possibly think of to eat.

I think that picnicking is what people are talking about when they’re trying to convince me that camping is fun. But how wonderful it is when you take it away from tents and the terror of being eaten by bears or mountain lions! A picnic is officially the most civilized thing you can do outdoors.

And never mind that on Thursday I was devastated at the tarragon that afflicted my tartar sauce (it tasted like potpourri), or that we’d opted to drive instead of bike and almost missed the last half-hour of Raincity Grill’s take-out operations. One of the intrinsic lessons of picnicking is that it doesn’t always go according to plan, which is something some of us need to become a lot more comfortable with. Funny how a spot of sunshine and a view of sparkles on the water can make even the worst tartar sauce, mislaid plan, or oversight be taken in stride.

Sunday’s effort was more coordinated, and full of flavour and style in a manner that is distinctly Grace’s. We sat on an elevated pier beside the water, watching birds and boats and feeling a little smug when another group of picnickers arrived, Tim Hortons’ sandwiches and bottled water in hand. While spontaneous take-out picnics can be fun, nothing trumps a fabulous spread paired beautifully with Spanish rosé and served on proper dishes.

I now know that food eaten in fresh air and above the water-level tastes better, and that sunshine does life-changing things to cold wine. These are important lessons, also intrinsic to picnicking, and how sad would it be to never have learned them? Of course, taking my word for it is cheating, and you must go out and discover (or rediscover) these facts for yourself.

There is no reason not to. You’ll need to prepare a bit ahead of time, unless you know of a good take-out window near the beach, and you’ll need an hour and a spot to sit on. Everything else is at your discretion, though I recommend Francis Lam’s ginger-scallion sauce on cold poached chicken, Smitten Kitchen’s mango slaw, some buns to pile both onto, and a selection of other treats – pickles, salads, watermelon (don’t forget the salt), baked goods – and, obviously, wine.

You can do this alone, but it’s better with friends. Four hours and optional napping is better than one hour, and more wine is better than none, but it’s like starting with the world’s easiest recipe and over time making it your own. My personal goal is to perfect the art of picnicking before the end of summer, which means at least seven more picnics (one for each remaining summer weekend), likely more.

If you live in Vancouver (or the valley, or Whistler or the island, or Seattle or Portland or anyplace in between here and there), where do you recommend we go? And what do you recommend we bring? It would be best if perfecting the art of picnicking was a group effort. Perhaps we should all go together?